Reconcile

Today I read the daily entry in the 2007 Partners in Prayer for Advent....even though it's 2008. In it this quote caught my eye:


"To reconcile means to bring together that which belongs together but is apart."


That which belongs together. Christ came to reconcile the world to God... we belong together but are apart. Advent can be a time of reconcilliation. Why are we apart from God? What are our greatest fears? Of being alone? Of being trapped in a partnership/relationship? Always living up to someone else's expectations of us? Of struggle? Of suffering? Of too much joy (we don't deserve it?)?


I went back to my training and looked up the root of the word. Re- conc - ium... Re- conciliate...re council ate...to bring back to the council. Another word was listed in the definition...propitiate. Took me way back to the 70's in the Dallas First Christian Church Choir with Don Perry directing "Beloved, Let Us Love One Another". It was the first time I heard and learned to pronounce propitiation (pro-pish-e-a-shun). To make atonement, to be gracious, merciful. To quote Webster's Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc. : "Pro*pi"tious\, a. [L. propitius, perhaps originally a term of augury meaning, flying forward (pro) or well; cf. Skr. pat to fly, E. petition, feather.]



Flying forward, bringing together that which belongs together but is apart. What an image.





Beloved, let us love on another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was

manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world thaat we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.








Let us be reconciled....let us love one another.