At our Ash Wednesday service last week, the second reading was taken from 2 Corinthians 5, and bore the title “Be reconciled with God.” In the passage Paul writes:

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled with God.

For Ash Wednesday, we reflected on the importance of repentance as expressed in this reading and considered the following questions:

• What does it mean to be part of a community?
• In what ways, through our words and actions, do we separate ourselves from the community?

As we journey through Lent we will focus more on these and any other questions that might be raised.

REVD RAKGADI KHOBO
CHAPLAIN