Equality

EQUALITY

Juncos and Cardinals are still visiting our bird feeder, there is not a Robin in sight… and it’s snowing – so spring is not here yet despite the calendar. 

We are over five days into the President’s 15 Days to Slow the Spread, but it feels like fifty.

We had church at home today, and walked in a nearby forest – maintaining our social distance from other like-minded nature lovers.

While speaking with my sweet French aunt, I discovered the folks there are sheltering in place and hanker for toilet paper as much as we do.

Folks in Colorado, per my son, are adding guns to their hoarding list. I guess the West is still wild.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose – The more things change, the more they stay the same.

People all over the world, of all economic and educational backgrounds respond similarly to fear. The only other level playing field that comes immediately to mind is death.

In a world that likes to dwell on our differences – race, gender, ethnicity, political affiliation, religion – I’m sure there’s more – we may forget that we were all made from the same dust.

A crisis may open our eyes to the similarities we have as humans in this world, but only in Jesus, can we become one – only renewed in His image do the walls fall down. Only in Christ is there true equality and freedom.

Since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him – a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian; Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all and in all (Colossians 3:9b-11).

Paul stating there was no distinction between Greek and Jew was a big deal in those days. Jews had no dealings with Greeks – wouldn’t even eat with them or buy meat from Gentile butchers. There was a racial and ethnic distinction between them - a divide that was not crossed.

Jews were circumcised, Greeks or Gentiles were not – this was a religious distinction – another separation.

Barbarians were looked down upon by Jews and Greeks as uneducated and uncultured. Scythians were the worst type of barbarian – a savage, hated and feared. They were known to drink blood out of the skulls of the people they conquered. There was a vast cultural distinction between them and the civilized people of the day.

A slave was property – the disparity between a slave and a freeman was insurmountable – a class distinction.

In Christ, they are equal. Man cannot do that. No law can change a single heart. It is only done by an act of God.

But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall (Ephesians 2:13-14),

Faith in Christ gives us what the world never will – peace with God and peace with men – regardless of circumstances or crises.

And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach – if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard… (Colossians 2:21-23a).