Heal our wounds

Jo Penn May 19, 2025 1 1

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2 Corinthians 5:16-19 (NIVUK)

16 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

What if we daily lived out of the truth that we are new creations, citizens of heaven gifted with the indwelling Holy Spirit and called to walk in the way of Jesus in our lives on this earth? Can we see the beauty that God has and is creating around us, in people’s hearts and in the created world? Our life on earth is but a small span in the arc of eternity; can we be agents calling out the God-given beauty and potential in the person standing before us? Can we call out the beauty and potential that the Holy Spirit is cultivating, to flourish in them for the blessing of their community? 

The Apostle Paul writes that God ‘has given us the ministry of reconciliation’. In ‘The Hiding Place’, Corrie Ten Boom describes that following a talk she was giving on her wartime experiences, 30 years after her internment in a Ravensbruck prison camp, she is brought face to face with a prison officer who had been part of that cruel regime. The man agrees with her words that she had just given, ‘Jesus has washed our sins away’. He stands there and offers his hand to her. In response, Corrie struggles to put her hand out to meet it, and prays to Jesus for help to forgive this prison officer, as it was too hard for her to do in that moment. Yet, as she took his hand – the Holy Spirit came, and love for this stranger flowed from her heart in an amazing way when she was obedient to the call to ask for Jesus’ forgiveness and chose to be a willing agent of reconciliation.

Prayer:

Forsaken Jesus, you chose the place of shame and bore the hatred of a hurting world. Meet us in our despair and lead us to hope.

Wounded Jesus, as you died you prayed ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing’. May your forgiveness flow through us.

Risen Jesus, you come to us with healed scars that speak of your deep love for us. Heal our wounds so they become scars of blessing for others.