Lord of Race

We’ve been talking about what it means for Jesus to be Lord and examining specific areas of His Lordship. Tuesday we examined how Jesus is Lord of Race. As we often do, we took a step back in time to the Garden of Eden to begin our discussion. We read Genesis 1:27 and Acts 17:26 to establish two key points: 

• All men are created in God’s image and therefore have dignity
• God was purposeful in creating many different races  

It was easy for our guys to see how the Fall and entrance of sin into the world really wrecked the potential for racial harmony. Racism, prejudice, envy, strife, and many more products of the Fall have driving wedges between races and people groups for generations. Obviously we still experience effects of the Fall today, even in ourselves.

And, as always, Christ is one who seeks to reverse the curse. I didn’t examine many examples from His life, but we did discuss John 4 and Jesus’ encounter with the women in Samaria. It was great to have a board for this time, because we could draw out how Jews normally detoured Samaria even though it made their trip much longer. As soon as I asked what they thought Jesus did, they said, “He went straight through it!” It’s encouraging that they are learning more of our Lord’s character and heart.

We also read from Ephesians 2:14:17:

“For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from the two groups. Together as one body, Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death.”

As we discussed the hostility that had existed between Jews and Gentiles, our guys began to see just how drastic Christ’s work was. In fact, the way He loved others looked much more like the shalom of Eden than our world today. His life’s work of redemption is one that begins the process of Restoration, making things perfect once more.

I emphasized the reality that Christ came first to reconcile men to God, and then men to one another. Only in the restoration of our relationship to our Father can we truly experience the fullness of racial reconciliation. However, I also believe it’s clear that we experience God in the fullest measure when we engage with brothers and sisters who are not like us. We discussed Revelation 5 as a proof of this. The ultimate joy of a Restored heaven and earth is being with God, but it’s clear from the text that being with people from “every tribe, tongue, people, and nation” is a part of that joy.

Our application points were obvious: Love all people of all races, celebrate color instead of being "colorblind", things like this. I told our young men that I know it’s hard to apply our call to racial harmony on a daily basis, because they aren’t usually around other races. However, that’s no excuse not to ask the Holy Spirit to convict us of our own sin, and to help us to live out the call when we have the opportunity.

It’s always hard to tell what is really landing in a person’s heart. But I know the topic of our discussion is in line with God’s heart. I also couldn’t help but think of how pleased Dr. King would have been had he observed the scene in our classroom on Tuesday. Hopefully we’re making an impact toward realizing God’s desire for racial harmony.