Thoughts for Sunday

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
          --2 Corinthians 5:16-19

Christ's act of reconciliation was done in history, tangibly, at a specific place and time. In receiving it, we find history vitally present and the myth that the past is separate from our experience is broken. The work of the Christian historian is reconciliation. The things that divide us here and now are older than ourselves. We cannot seek justice in the present apart from reckoning with our tangled pasts.