Enmity Between Us

"Do not lose sight of the fact that you were born 'Gentiles,' known by those whose bodies were circumcised as 'the uncircumcised.' You were without Christ, you were utter strangers to God's chosen community, the Jews,  and you had no knowledge of, or right to, the promised agreements. You had nothing to look forward to and no God to Whom you could turn. But now, through the blood of Christ, you who were once outside the pale are with us inside the circle of God's love and purpose. For Christ is our living Peace. He has made a unity of the conflicting elements of Jew and Gentile by breaking down the barrier which lay between us. By His sacrifice He removed the hostility of the Law, with all its commandments and rules, and made in Himself out of the two, Jew and Gentile, One New Man, thus producing peace. For He reconciled both to God by the sacrifice of one Body on the cross, and by this act made utterly irrelevant the antagonism between them." Ephesians 2:11-16

Racism. If we truly think about it, it's a completely ridiculous notion. One person is born better than another? Isn't that exactly why America started- to escape tyranny? Shouldn't America, the land of opportunity and freedom, be the exact place people can be all they can be, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, attain the American Dream and all that? But life is hard, we say, so we make it easier by putting others down to build ourselves up. We enslave, both literally and metaphorically, people we think as inferior. In reality, it's because we're afraid.

Fear. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of people disliking us or not thinking we're special. Fear of not being special. Fear of failure. Fear of not being the best or not being smarter than someone or better looking. I don't know about you, but I can literally be fearful every moment of my life about something. And it manifests in the worst ways (see racism, bullying, lying, cheating, etc.).

Paul in the Bible passage above talks about the New Man (he means person). The only difference God ever saw in people wasn't our skin color, our nationality, our familial status, etc. but that we were Jew or Gentile (all non-Jews). And prior to Jesus, most every Gentile didn't stand a chance of knowing God. But we, by God's amazing grace, live in a time after Jesus- which means we can know Him and be saved from all our fear. Speaking as a Gentile, it's such an incredible gift to think of the time God let me be born into, Post-Jesus, and that because of that I can be part of the New Man and I can be completely a child of God. As a child of God I have no other home, no other distinction or barrier. He made us all one and produced peace.

He brought us peace, people. Peace. Jesus reconciled our differences, forgave and saved us from ourselves. And this path we walk as Christians should demonstrate that great change every day. We've got to do better. We've got to fall as His feet and beg to be continually transformed to more like Him- a God who sees no difference in us and loves all His children the same.