Luke 12:58 As you are going to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled on the way, or your adversary may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and officer throw you into prison.
Reconciliation has some very practical outcomes. We often think about reconciliation as an emotional event, an event when the wronged have the opportunity to tell the perpetrators just how they have been injured. We have seen reconciliation processes be fairly successful in some places in Africa, where war crimes and genocide happened.
But reconciliation can be much more than the telling of stories and a sense of being heard.
Our text today comes from a section of the Gospel of Luke where the author is reporting words spoken to a crowd about the need for paying attention to what Jesus is saying. Too often they heard only what they wanted to hear. They enjoyed the food and the healings, but Jesus was about much more than meals and physical health.
Just like today, they had the tendency to coast through their lives. There was not enough thought about how their current actions and attitudes would affect their futures. So as Jesus shares about this future, they don’t really take it in. They have trouble understanding the need for action.
So in Jesus’ usual fashion, Jesus paints a picture using words. Remember, they are not paying attention to what is happening right in front of their faces. Jesus, the Messiah, is introducing the restoration of God’s rule and reign on earth through His image-bearers, humanity. Jesus uses a judicial context to make His point.
Our text puts it fairly plainly. If you owe someone some money, pay them the money you owe before you get into the judicial system. If you can’t make arrangements before getting to the court, look out! The court will not be lenient with you. Justice will come.
Reconciliation in this instance involves paying the money that is owed. It is a very practical action that needs to be taken. Money owed. Money repaid. Case solved.
But how is Jesus’ using this story to get the crowd’s attention, and get them to listen and act on what He has been preaching and teaching. They have missed it. The evidence was right in front of them, but they were not seeing it. They were drawing the wrong conclusions from the evidence at hand.
With our text, the conclusion is plain and simple. Jesus is calling the crowd to the plain and simple conclusion. Just as they could interpret various weather signals to determine the upcoming weather, so they should be able to apply this same principle to Jesus and His ministry.
Jesus is calling them to repent, to live a very different type of life, one motivated and energized by love. This love is so radical that it is willing to die on behalf of those who hate it. This love takes the world’s only true weapon, death, and He swallows it whole. And when He does, the power of death is absorbed and dissipated.
There are probably some things that the LORD has been pointing out to you lately, over which you have been wrestling. He is calling you to obedience in certain areas, and you are fighting the obedience. The way forward is clear, just like the man in our text.
But obedience is costly. There is something we must do. The LORD calls us to action. Will be put our rubber to the road?
The Arnold Journey 