The church is Christ’s embassy, an oasis where Jesus reigns supreme. Everything we do as a body we do to protect and build up the embassy.
“We are Christ’s ambassadors. God is using us to speak to you: we beg you, as though Christ himself were here pleading with you, receive the love he offers you—be reconciled to God.” 2 Corinthians 5:20 (TLB)
If I were one of the Corinthians reading this letter I would probably be in awe of the author’s words of faith and power. This idea of ambassadorship is both inspiring and a little terrifying to me. I tend to be a confident (sometimes overly so) person, but in this case I would feel a tad under-qualified for the job of representing the Creator of The Universe to a fallen humanity.
The ambassador, of course, lives in the embassy. The embassy is generally considered sovereign territory and the laws outside the embassy are different from the laws inside. The significance of this seems to shift depending on where we are. If we are visiting Paris for example, we are generally not concerned about where the embassy is. That is true mainly because we don’t expect there to be any trouble, except for maybe a rude waiter angry at the foreigner who is pouring ketchup on perfectly good food. But let’s say, you are in Baghdad. You will, most likely, make sure you know the cell phone number of the ambassador just in case you needed help.
I was four years old and living in Chile when the military coup d’état happened. Hundreds of thousands were arrested and put in concentration camps. Thousands were tortured and killed. My Dad spent six months in one of those camps and upon his release he immediately took our family to the UN headquarters where a few dozen other families sought refuge until they could safely leave the country. I was instructed to not wander outside of the gates under any circumstances. Two soldiers with machine guns guarded the entrance and there was no guarantee that if any of us left the sovereign territory of the embassy, we would ever be let back in. I was four years old and clueless about the political situation but two things were clear to me:
1. There was evil going on outside those gates and
2. We were safe because this evil could not cross into the safe zone inside the embassy.
I think that’s how my children feel about our family. By the grace of God we live on different terms than many. We are Christ’s embassy. There’s a lot of bad stuff going on outside, but they know they are safe and protected inside the embassy. Every time we pray together, talk about Jesus, repent and apologize, delight in each other, we are claiming the territory of our family as Christ’s embassy. As long as we are His, evil can attack but will not penetrate the safe zone.
The church is Christ’s embassy, an oasis where Jesus reigns supreme. Everything we do as a body we do to protect and build up the embassy. When the leaders preach fearlessly, they are protecting the embassy and they are proclaiming freedom to the oppressed outside the embassy. When we choose to be Jesus followers first and friends second in our small groups we are protecting the embassy.
A dear sister came to me recently and asked if we could talk. I had hurt her, she told me, in different ways, most of which I was unaware of. She spoke grace and truth into my life and I had the opportunity to recognize areas in my character I needed to change and to apologize sincerely. She was protecting the embassy by sharing with me and I am grateful.
“He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. … And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.” Matthew 10:40-42 (NIV)
Here we go again. Jesus is announcing that every worker in his embassy is, in fact, an ambassador, He also promises that any act of kindness toward “one of these little ones” would be rewarded by the King himself. To this I feel like saying “Uh, excuse me sir, I think there’s been a mistake here. I am just the janitor in this embassy and don’t feel at all comfortable with being appointed ambassador”. I think this is true for most of us. We love the King but inwardly fear falling flat on our face as His ambassadors.
The trouble with Jesus’ ambassadorship is that it’s a combination of being “little” and being “big” at the same time. The ambassador is an authorized messenger of the head of state. Practically what it means is that the messenger is “little” and the message is “big”.
We are called to be humble messengers speaking with great authority. This means that we should learn to do a “head check” every once in a while. This is how it works: feel your head with your hands thoroughly and check if by any chance you might still be wearing a crown. If you are, as a messenger you are no longer “little” and it undermines the message which is not supposed to be about you but about Jesus.
After living the rock star life, I laid down my crown 15 years ago, and the years of service as ambassador of the Most High have been better than I ever imagined they would be. The problem with the surrender of the crown thing is that Jesus doesn’t ask you to bring it to a certain crown collecting point where there is an incinerator that vaporizes your crown. He lets you keep it in case you change your mind later. So I picture my crown in a box in the closet. Most of the time it just sits there and doesn’t bother me, but there are other times when an appealing shimmer breaks through under the lid as if inviting me to open the box. And I am drawn to it, I open it. No one is looking after all, and this is harmless. I look at it, then I take it out of the box and put it on my head. I look at myself in the mirror. You should see me, I look pretty good in that crown! I should be wearing this more often, I think to myself. Those are the times when I usually get hurt or hurt someone else.
God has never spoken to me in an audible voice, but if he did during the pathetic trying-the-crown-on experiment, I think the first thing I would hear would be His laughter. The reason I think this is because I sometimes laugh quietly while I watch one of my kids do something they shouldn’t, thinking they can totally get away with it. The second thing God would say to me is “Dude, I am right here looking straight at you! Put that thing down.” I’m not sure God would use the word “dude”, but then again, why not? We are in California after all.
An ambassador is also a lover of the country he is in. That might not be true of all ambassadors, I have only met one. His name is Alexander Vershbow, he now serves as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security under president Obama. When we met a number of years ago he was serving as US ambassador to Russia. My wife Deb and I would go to the yearly Christmas parties at the ambassador’s residence. The event was always very elegant and proper. Ambassador Vershbow would grace each guest with a few minutes of his time, he would show us around the beautiful building and make small talk. I always thought of ambassadors as career politicians who probably dreaded every day spent in the country they were sent to and wished they were at their ranch somewhere in Texas. It turns out Ambassador Vershbow had received a B.A form Yale and an M.B.A from Columbia both in Russian and European studies. The man had spent many years studying this country and enjoyed being there.
As Christians many of us confuse “not being of this world” with not liking people in this world. So many people hate Christianity because of the Christians. We give Jesus a bad name and are terrible ambassadors when we don’t accept, love, and enjoy being with non Christians. How many non Christian friends do you have? I don’t mean acquaintances, I mean friends. It’s so easy for many of us to succumb to the religious subculture which Jesus was criticizing the religious in his parable of the Good Samaritan. As ambassadors we are called to be “friends of sinners” as Jesus is, and you can’t be a friend to people you don’t like.
We are Christ’s Ambassadors. We are “little ones” empowered to tell a very big story: the story of the King of kings who willingly laid down his crown and walked among us fully empathizing with humanity. He suffered pain, humiliation and death to rescue us from ourselves and then called us into His joy. His Kingdom is described as a wedding banquet, His rule as pure love, life in His domain as a place with comfort, strength and courage in death, suffering and tears. His Kingdom is right here and right now.
The King needs more ambassadors to plead for reconciliation, speaking of His love, with great humility and great authority.
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