Similarities

I’ve been thinking about a number of the headlines and how I should be looking at these thru the lens of the gospel. Her are my thoughts.

I am six feet tall. When I walk thru a mall, I notice, albeit subconsciously, the height of other people. In those circumstances, I feel I have more in common with the person who is six-foot-two than the person who is four-foot-eight. I will also notice skin color. I am white, but a darker shade of white. As I pass people in the mall, I will see some that are lighter skinned than me and some that are much darker. Who do I have more similarities with, a light skinned African-American or a pale Caucasian? Finally, there is gender. I have more similarities with men than I do with women. There are so many ways to sub-divide us and with varying degrees of viability.

There is, however, one dominating criteria for the division of the human race. Romans 5:18 says, “Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.”

That first sin led to the condemnation of all men, and united us all into the family of sinners. Judge Sonia Sotomayor is Hispanic, but she is a sinner just like me. Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr is a Harvard Scholar and an African-American, and he is a sinner, just like me. Unless we realize that if we focus on foot size, ice cream preference, skin color or national origin, we will always be divided. However, if we look at our desperate state as sinners, we will be united in our humility. And if we can look upward and outward and depend on Christ as our Savior, we reach a deeper and eternal unity as brothers and sisters in God’s family of the redeemed.

There is only one unifying place. It unifies us, it unifies history and it unifies God and man. That place is the cross.