A New Thing

December 1, 2021

Advent 2021

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Walls and fences are built for a number of reasons. Walls and fences keep outsiders outside. Walls and fences keep insiders inside. Walls and fences identify ownership of property. Walls and fences protect from undesired influences and undesired visitors. Walls and fences are built to separate.

Years ago during our second term as cross-cultural workers, our family lived in a small West-African village. We chose Mogoyafara, a 700-person village, as a base to help us connect with church leaders living in the surrounding villages. After moving into our compound consisting of four mud huts, we were encouraged by the villagers to rebuild a rickety stick fence surrounding our huts. The old termite-infested fence posed no barrier to grazing cows and goats, pecking chickens, lazy dogs, and inquisitive children! The villagers had fences for their homes—we needed a fenced partition for ours. Walls and fences are built to separate.

The apostle Paul reminded the church at Ephesus that walls separate. The dividing wall of hate and enmity that existed between the Jewish community and the Gentile community in the 1st century had existed for centuries. Both Jewish and gentile communities were aware of the stone partition in the temple at Jerusalem that was constructed to separate Jews from gentiles—a wall dividing the temple proper from the Court of the Gentiles. On that wall was the inscription in Greek and Latin “which forbade any foreigner to go in, under pain of death” (Josephus, Antiquities xv. 11.5). The temple wall separated.

In the sacrifice of King Jesus on the Cross, Paul proclaims that the alienating wall of separation has been deconstructed. Peace is secured through Jesus’ atoning work—peace with God and peace between members of humankind. Paul uses the word “new” (v. 15, Grk: kainos) to explain the new “thing,” the new humanity that exists among Christ-followers. William Barclay explains the “new in the sense that it brings into the world a new kind of thing, a new quality of thing, which did not exist before.” It is not a matter of bringing different peoples together—God has made a totally new people for Himself through the Cross. The wall separates no more.

For Personal Reflection: Where do you see evidence of God’s new people in our broken world?

✧ Nativity Building: Set up the stable, but leave it empty for now. Long before Jesus was born on earth, God was getting everything ready.