Ministry of Reconciliation

Ministry of Reconciliation

South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established after the end of Apartheid, was explicitly grounded in Archbishop Tutu's theology of forgiveness and reconciliation drawn from 2 Corinthians 5. He described the commission's work: 'We are not offering cheap amnesty. We are offering the possibility that a nation that was separated by violence can become whole.' Not every testimony ended in reconciliation. But the architecture of the process — truth, acknowledgment, repentance, forgiveness — was the structure of the gospel itself. Tutu often quoted this verse: 'God gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Not the option. The ministry. We are stewards of it.'

Paul's description of the ministry of reconciliation begins with the source: 'all this is from God.' The reconciliation of humanity to God through Christ was God's initiative, God's cost, God's achievement. And it was given to us as a ministry — a service, a stewardship. To be reconciled is also to become a reconciler. To have received the peace with God that Christ's cross achieved is to be enrolled in the work of mediating that peace to others. This is not an optional extra for the spiritually advanced. It is the natural consequence of having been reconciled: those who have experienced it are equipped and called to carry it. Where do you need to be a reconciler today?