Read Matthew 5:23-24

“So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

In Jesus’ day, religious people would sacrifice to God as both an act of worship and a means of forgiveness for their sins so that they might again be reconciled to God. Amongst this familiar practice, Jesus was about to offer himself as a once-forever divine sacrifice to provide permanent forgiveness of sins. In replacing this sacrificial system, Jesus provides a poignant reminder that the reconciliation he offers us is not a token religious act, but a relational one. Unlike merely transactional forgiveness, Jesus highlights that the damage sin does is not just between us and God but also between ourselves and those around us. 

Jesus spotlights the need for reconciliation by using the word ‘brother’ to show that if you are a person of faith, then those who share your faith are in effect part of God’s family with you. As siblings in God’s family, it’s incongruous with God’s “family values” that one of his children can be at peace with him, but at war with a sibling. How could someone who claims to be reconciled with God not be willing to reconcile with other men and women whom God has also reconciled to himself and brought into His family?

We know how serious a point Jesus is making because we presume from the details of the story that he is teaching this in Galilee, which was approximately 80 miles from the temple in Jerusalem – the only place where a Jewish altar for animal sacrifice existed at the time. So Jesus is declaring that God sees personal reconciliation as such a significant spiritual act that if you arrived in Jerusalem to worship God but realised that someone has a valid complaint against you back home, then you must quickly double back to set things right. Given that Jesus was speaking to people in Galilee at the time, about four days walk from Jerusalem, walking home to reconcile with a “brother” before returning to worship would have sounded quite extreme to his audience!  Yet Jesus is clearly teaching that unless they had made a sincere attempt to reconcile with people in their life, they shouldn’t seek reconciliation with God through their temple worship.

Since Jesus’ death has made it clear that his personal sacrifice was the last sacrifice that would ever be needed, we no longer need to make sacrifices at any altar or payments to any account to be forgiven.

However, whenever we pray or worship the God who has reconciled us to himself, Jesus would have us consider if there is anyone else with whom we have not yet reconciled. If there is, then Jesus would advise us to “go” and hear them out, display compassion and understanding and ultimately apologise and forgive wherever necessary. This is how we live out the reconciliation we have received in Jesus.

Is there someone in God’s family that you need to reconcile with?