Reflections on the peacemaker

Tonight, my friend Phil told the story of a freind of his who works in the field of brokering peace in some of the worlds most troubled hotspots. In the story, the person gave himself up to say that spy to stop a town from being masecred by a genocidal regime as it was the only way to save the town. As a result he was held captive and tortured.

To save this town, he had to sacrifice himself.

Our sacrifice for peace is not often like this, but it will be costly, it may be giving up time to help a signgle mother, it may be spending time with refugees, it may be stepping out and confronting a bully who is bullying our best mate, it may just be taking in orphans and treating them as our own. But it will be costly.

Phil told another story, of how his mate was arrested for armed robbery, and asked him to journey with him in his healing process. Phil reluctantly agreed to journey with him through a five year painful process while he was in prison, while the painful mending process occured. Phil knew that the time would be a sacrifice and costly, but also wanted to love his friend.

Redemption is costly, Jesus showed this by the most epic example of sacrifice and love through going through death on the Cross.While it is costly, it has eternal conssequences, the healing act of redemption has greater returns than the cost ever has.