In the past 18 months the Echuca-Moama community has come to realise how distressing it is when the state border proves to be a barrier to us mixing freely. We all feel incomplete. Presently we rejoice that only personal identification and address is necessary, but we long for the time when even this is removed. For although we live in two different states, we see ourselves as one community and no different to each other.
Even in one community we can find there are barriers between us and another person. These could be language barriers, hearing barriers, age barriers, cultural barriers or personality differences.
In 2019 Heather Kirkpatrick directed a movie about a Tasmanian Christian woman who gives a knitted beanie to a Muslim Afghan Hazara asylum seeker. The movie is called Mary Meets Mohammad. Mary was dead against this type of person coming here, but through visiting him regularly in Tasmania’s first detention centre, a supportive friendship developed. Mary came to know Mohammad as a person and her harsh views on these foreigners softened. Her fear was transformed to love.
We long for a time when all people are reconciled one to another and the world is in peace. However, ultimate peace can only be achieved when we are reconciled to the being who has given us life. How is your relationship with God? Maybe you feel it is non-existent. Maybe you are fearful of God. Or maybe you love God with all your heart. You may also feel that your relationship with God is somewhere in the middle of these feelings.
Jesus came to help us to get to know the Lord God. Jesus was God in human form, something that although hard to grasp, was shown through Jesus’s being. Jesus displayed the traits of a loving God and he attracted those who were open to his revolutionary teachings. Not only did Jesus come to show us God in the flesh, but he also came to provide a way for us to have a personal relationship with the Lord God, to break down the barrier between us and God. For through Jesus’s obedience to God and death on the cross, the way has been opened for us to have a loving relationship with our Creator and the One who sustains us. Through Jesus’s death we have forgiveness of wrongdoing and reconciliation with God. Jesus is our bridge to God.
Just as we long for the state border barrier to be removed, as we long for world peace, we most deeply long for a relationship with our Maker and restoration of life in all its fullness. May you experience the bridging power of Jesus to God through God’s loving Spirit active in our world.
Rev Michele Lees
Echuca-Moama Uniting Church minister
