Brown's Daily Word 5-14-09

Good Morning,
This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. I praise the Lord for the parsonage, where we live is a beautiful and very spacious home, which the Lord has provided for us. We have lived here almost 19 years. The parsonage has several rooms, many walls, and ample space. Walls in a home provide a barrier to keep out the elements, ensure privacy, and provide a place to hang pictures. Why do we build walls? Generally we build walls because of fear! We seek protection, and defense against hostile forces. The Great Wall of China was built to keep out the invading hordes of Genghis Khan and other powerful enemies. This amazing defensive palisade stretches for 6700 kilometers over the Chinese frontier. It has stood for over 2000 years and is a symbol of a peoples’ desire to be safe. Hadrian’s Wall in Great Britain was built for a similar reason, to keep the wild tribes of the north from threatening civilized Roman settlements in the south. It was built in the second century and ran 73 miles long through the English countryside. In more recent history we recall the infamous Berlin Wall and its notorious purpose of keeping people in. Those who visited the wall before its destruction in 1989 said that they could feel the built-in suspicion and mutual distrust, the hatred and hostility, and the outright defiance represented by that wall. East German guards would watch with keen eyes both sides of the wall making certain that no one came in or out. Many people were killed trying to escape East Germany. Where their bodies fell, West Germans would erect crosses as a reminder and in open defiance of the East German guards. I remember that it was the Advent season of 1989 when the world rejoiced as the Berlin Wall was dismantled by exultant Germans. What a time that was! West Germans were reunited with East Germans to become one Germany after 45 years of painful division. However, when the wall came down, I believe the Germans discovered an invisible wall that was even more difficult to tear down. There were two cultures at odds. One was that of an oppressed people, and the other was a culture of the free-thinking and prosperous. East Germans may have felt like 2nd class citizens, charity cases for the West, while the West may have felt resentment at having to support their poor brothers. It was a new kind of hostility that is still experienced today. All of us have invisible walls that are difficult to deconstruct. If we are honest about who we are we have to admit that we do not allow others to see our true selves. Some people build higher walls, while others we keep a waist high fence. We are afraid people will see too much of us and therefore have nothing to do with us. So it is that we throw up a wall.
Jesus came to destroy walls. His mission was to remove the barriers that keep us from knowing Him, knowing each other, and ultimately living in true relationship. In Ephesians 2:13 Paul describes how Christ breaks down walls and brings people together, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.” Peace is a person, according to Paul. Jesus is our peace. His peace through his own shed blood is what destroys the walls that divide. Paul said “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). This was his purpose, to bring before God a new people without distinctions. “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household…”. Christ has created a new society where we are no longer outcasts. Christ is our peace.
In His Peace,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2qm3eD4akM