2008 Letter No 07

Each month Bill writes a pastor's letter for our monthly church magazine called 'The Messenger'. Here is the letter for July 2008:

I sometimes wonder which one word best sums up the gospel message. Now, of course, I realise that we need more than one word to tell the good news of Jesus, but it can still be a helpful and interesting exercise to think about what is at the heart of our message.

If you really were reduced to just one word then I suppose that the name ‘Jesus’ would be the word to choose. Jesus is, after all, at the centre of the gospel, and without him there is no good news. His incarnation, death and resurrection provide the secure foundation on which all our hopes are built. However, other words also have their place: Love, Forgiveness, Peace, Freedom, Life, Acceptance, Grace, Relationship, Reconciliation … I find that it is an act of grateful worship just to name these things.

Personally, I have always particularly warmed to the theme of reconciliation. Reconciliation is one of the most beautiful things in the world. If I am watching a film in which two people, who have previously been enemies or have been estranged from one other, end up embracing then I find it hard to fight back the tears. There is something wonderfully beautiful about it, because it shows something of the heart of God. All beauty finds its origins in God, and the beauty of reconciliation is no exception. Where previously there had been hostility between God and human beings, because of our rebellion and his righteous anger at our sin, there is now peace through Jesus Christ. A relationship has been restored. There is reconciliation.

This is one of the reasons why Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, recorded in Luke 15, is so popular. It is one of the best known of all Jesus’ teachings, and isn’t it wonderful to imagine the loving father running down the dusty road with arms outstretched to meet his errant son? The son is wrapped up in the arms of love while he is still on his way home. He had been nervously dragging his feet along the road which led home, fearing an angry reaction from his father and rehearsing the humble speech he intended to make when he finally arrived. But before the son ever got there he was ambushed by love. This story expresses our deepest needs. The need to be welcomed home, even when we don’t deserve a thing. The need to be embraced by love, even though we have been so unloving ourselves. The need for reconciliation. And in his second letter to the Corinthians the apostle Paul writes about the ministry of reconciliation:

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)

Reconciliation should be one of the characteristics of the church – people who have been forgiven much, who also forgive others – people from very different backgrounds living in loving community with one another because we all worship a God who has reconciled us sinners to himself through the cross.

And here at West Bromwich Baptist Church, I believe that this is one of our strengths. We have not got it perfect by any means. There are at times tensions among us. We do not always live in harmony with one another. But still I believe that we are at our best when we are joyfully sharing a meal together – people from different nations, races, and backgrounds who have been brought together into one family by Christ.

And in this area of Sandwell these things are particularly important. Even our very existence as a multi-cultural, multi-racial church is an important act of witness in an area where, until the most recent local elections in May, the BNP had been gaining ground with its message of hatred and mistrust.

As well as proclaiming the good news of Jesus through our words, we should also proclaim the good news of Jesus through who we are … a community of people from very different backgrounds, who have been reconciled to God in one body by the cross.