Part of why I blog is to remember little lessons the Lord teaches me, so I can go back and see them later. This will be a short one, because it was inspired by the most mundane of daily tasks and I need to return to them, but I wanted to remember. Lucy, my three year old, loves to borrow her sisters’ stuff while they are at school. Please don’t tell them about this little arrangement I have with the stay-at-home child. Today, she wanted to play with some markers, and before I realized it, she had colored with permanent marker on the little handheld dry erase board Rebekah’s teacher gave her for Christmas last year. This board is a treasure. And right now it is destroyed. This will, if not corrected, cause a level-3 meltdown when Rebekah gets off the bus.

So during lunch today, I sat next to Lucy doing a little coloring myself. I am painstakingly coloring over the permanent marker with a dry-erase marker, trying to erase away the evidence of Lucy’s violation of Rebekah’s property and privacy. It is an agonizingly slow process, if I’m being honest.

And in case you’re wondering about justice (I do love me some justice), I did talk to Lucy about not coloring on sissy’s board with markers . But I’m working hard to make it right for her. As I was coloring, a thought bubbled to the surface. “This is the ministry of reconciliation.” This. Erasing the error of another. Hiding something, taking on a project that is not really mine to fix, but fixing it to show grace. That didn’t feel intuitive, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.

I am a big fan of dragging things into the light so we can be reconciled to each other. Let’s get it all out – air our stuff, confess our sins one to another. And I’m not alone. Doesn’t it feel like, these days, we are a little nutty about pointing out the flaws in others? In almost every social media post and online interaction, it’s interesting to watch and see how quickly the post or idea gets the “well actually” treatment. People shame others for errors, or perceived errors, even errors that have been clarified and corrected, just in case they actually meant what we’re pretty sure they meant. I do it, I’ve seen it done to others, and it has been done to me.

And yet, in our job as salt and light, is this another opportunity to be different, to shine bright in a dark world? The ministry of reconciliation can be about erasing something, forgiving it, covering it with grace instead of shining a light on it and exposing it to the world. What is a more graceful response – holding the board in Lucy’s face, meeting Rebekah at the door so she can get in on the chorus, and us showing Lucy the error of her ways? Or erasing the marks made by little hands more likely in ignorance than in spite, and promoting peace.

Peacemaking is such a theme for me these days. As a peacemaker, I really believe in all truth being God’s truth, and holding all things up to it. I can get overzealous in that and I can point out your error with the best of them, particularly in an area where I am passionate or sure of my rightness. But we are to be people of grace and truth. Jesus’ blood is said to have washed away our sins, not just magnified them so we can feel shame (1 John 1:7).

The ministry of reconciliation comes out of 2 Corinthians 5, where Paul says,

 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. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

It describes this two way transaction; Christ reconciles us to Himself, and he gives us the power to reconcile others. I read a commentary today that said, “The reconciled become the reconcilers,” which I loved. And it describes the action as “not counting their trespasses against them.” Doesn’t it feel like, all too often, we Christians are the worst at counting “their” trespasses against them? As if we are so innocent. Why do we feel that weight and that pressure to ensure the righteousness of another, instead of trusting them to God as we trust God for our own right standing? Is it because of our fear of a vindictive God, or because we have the ministry of reconciliation all wrong?

I’m wrestling through it as I erase, but I like the idea that we function as erasers in the world, minimizing the shame and guilt and fear of others. And I like the idea of God, as a parent, erasing the sins of a beloved child. It’s such a sweet picture of God, when I default sometimes to imagining Him infinitely more harsh.

So today, on a normal Friday, I’m happy to join him in the ministry of reconciliation. And I hope you have opportunities to do the same. God knows we all need it.