Photo by: Gazzat
Earlier in the week, BP announced that it “would appoint an independent mediator to review and assist in the claims-payment process for damages caused by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.”
Regarding that plan to settle out of court claims, Business Week online, reported that lawyers for some of the fishermen said, “Telling the fishermen that their only recourse is to bring their problems with BP’s procedures to BP is like telling the hens to bring their issues with henhouse safety to the fox.’’
The objection reflects the fact that in modern terms, mediation is a means of conflict resolution that usually depends on the skills of a neutral third party to gain a fair settlement.
In a somewhat different sense, however, the idea of a mediator is as old as “the peacemaker” of the Bible who intervenes to make peace without necessarily being a neutral third party. Moses, for instance, tried to mediate a potentially fatal collision between his people and God. Yet he was far from even-handed when he said to the Almighty, “My people have sinned against you. Please forgive them. But if you cannot, please blot my name out of your book. (Exodus 32:30; Deut 5:4-5).
At this point, though, our thoughts can go to the Mediator who preceded and followed Moses in ways that encompass the whole story of the Bible. In the ultimate sense, this Mediator acted in behalf of his Father and us– before and after the worst of all personal and environmental disasters. It was this same second Person of the Godhead who would come to mediate the rescue of an endangered humanity that was in far more trouble than oil-fouled Louisiana pelicans.
This Mediator saw our relationship with God as something to die for.
Yet, beyond the inexpressible extent of his suffering and love, it’s important for us to see that every interaction between God and ourselves happens through his mediation in our behalf. He is the ultimate Mediator who is later described by the Apostle Paul when he writes, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ (Messiah) Jesus (Savior) 1Timothy 2:5.
While we may rightly think of this mediation as as occurring in Christ’s intervention and death in our behalf, it actually involves far more. According to the Bible the mediation of the Messiah is also seen in that,
In behalf of the Father, and out of personal love for us:
1. The Mediator spoke the world into existence (John 1:1-3)
2. The Mediator sustains the world (Col 1:16-17)
3. The Mediator revealed the Father to us (John 1:14).
4. The Mediator paid the price for our forgiveness (1Peter 3:18).
5. The Mediator will bring peace to the world (Isa 2:4)
6. The Mediator will bring us to his Father (1Thess 4:13-17)
7. The Mediator will judge the world (John 5:22).
Such a summary is only the beginning of all of the ways the Father has used the Son to mediate between Himself and us. Looking back to God’s presence with Adam and Eve in the Garden, as well as in every other encounter between God and man, it is always the pre or post-incarnate Christ who mediates God’s presence to us.
In the process, of thinking about this, however, there is t least one very important difference between the Mediator that Jesus is, and the kind of mediation that we see when a father, mother, teacher, coach, or officer of the law wraps arms around two conflicted “children” to help them come to terms with one another. Jesus is not just a lovingly neutral party who steps between an angry Father and ourselves. He is instead the perfect personification of His Father’s heart and love for us. As our one and only Mediator, he has come in behalf of His Father to show us that, even in the face of our worst sin, there is a way back—that the Father offers us– for the asking– if we say, “Yes, I’ll believe and entrust myself to your Mediator.”
Would be interested in knowing whether seeing the Father’s heart in the Son’s mediation for our rescue, adoption, provision, and protection—results in as much of a “yes” for you… as it does today in me…
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