Skip to main content

Christ Our Mediator

"Christ above me, Christ beside me, Christ within me ever guiding, Christ behind me, Christ before, Christ my love, my life, my Lord." - Hymn by John Chisum

What does it mean that Christ is our mediator? We often talk about how because of what Christ has done for us we now have direct access to the Father, but that isn't what the Bible says. We have access to the Father as his children in the Spirit through Christ. We pray in Jesus' name, after all.

We know that Christ is our mediator. The Bible does say that plainly, such as in 1 Timothy 2:5, but this is an aspect of who Christ is and what he does that I think we neglect in our theology and lives. We don't like having to go through someone else for anything, especially the most important things. We Americans prefer to do it ourselves.

The very concept of mediation is something we aren't a fan of. Couples struggling with their relationship are often resistant to see a marriage counselor or therapist, aka a mediator. We often prefer to settle things on our own instead of resorting to the courts (at least some of us do). We often treat people who try to mediate our problems with others as sticking their nose where it doesn't belong and getting into our personal business.

That's exactly right though. A mediator gets in the middle of the mess and sorts things out. In order to properly mediate a dispute the mediator needs to know the full extent of what is going on. Otherwise they won't be able to effectively solve the crisis.

Jesus is our mediator. He entered into our mess in order to resolve the conflict we had with God and he demands nothing less than all of us, personal business included. In this particular dispute there is only one guilty party, us. The Father is who has always been and shall always be: perfect, holy, all-loving, and good. He never turned his back on us and never wronged us.

We need Jesus to mediate our lives, every ounce of it. As Christians we are baptized into Christ, effectively becoming surrounded by him. We shouldn't be able to look at God, each other, or the world without having our actions, thoughts, and words shaped by Jesus our mediator. 

Christians are likewise called to be mediators in the world. The primary way we do that is through prayer. We pray for the world that they may know God. We pray for our leaders that they may rule wisely. We, the people of God in Christ, stand at the intersection of the world and the Kingdom of God, and as participants in Christ we are called to mediate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We Need More Images

What is your favorite way to describe God? Is there a particular name of God in scripture that you are drawn to? What images and pictures come to mind when you think of God? These are questions I don't think we ask often enough. We all have an image of God in our heads that we work with. It may not be a literal picture, though it might be, but ideas and concepts we tend to associate with who God is. Some of those images and associations may come from the Bible, but some may not. These things are influenced by our upbringing, Bible reading habits, personalities, relationships, culture, and more. The way we picture God has a dramatic impact on the way we live our lives. For example, if the primary idea you have of God is "Healer," when you hear or read that you are made in God's image you will likely feel called to heal, be it physical ailments or spiritual wounds. But, if your primary image of God is "Judge," that changes things. You very likely might tend to...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving, the day that we are supposed to celebrate all the things we are thankful for. It is a time of family reunions, football, and turkey eating. I sincerely pray that each and every one of you has a good day today. I'll admit that being thankful has not been easy for me this year. As pretty much all of you know, my mother passed away December of last year. Though she had been in the hospital for months, we were not expecting it. In fact I was sure she would be finally able to come home within a matter of weeks. Instead she peacefully passed on into the arms of Jesus, whom she loved more dearly than anyone else. As you can imagine, the entire family was heart broken. After what can easily be described as the worst Christmas ever, I returned to home to Illinois. It was here that I finally broke down. I spent the next months doing everything except being thankful. I cursed God, wept, screamed, begged to have her back, and was generally not the nicest person to be...
3 comments
Read more

The Early Middle Ages: Historical Friday

The next segment of history that we are going to overview is the Early Middle Ages. This dates roughly from AD 450 to AD 1100. This is intended to be a very general overview. There are probably historians that would classify some other time period as the "Early Middle Ages" or a more specific time period. For our purposes this will cover the aforementioned time period. This was a very influential period in the history of Christianity. It saw the formation of what we now call the Roman Catholic Church and its separation from what we would now call the Eastern Orthodox Church. Before this time there was only ONE church. There weren't different denominations or groups. It is hard for us to think about in our modern context, but there was a time when Christianity was visibly unified. Brief History The first major thing to happen during this time period is the remaining three ecumenical councils. We discussed the first four several weeks ago. These councils discussed va...
Post a Comment
Read more