The Language of Faith: atonement - guide

Share the high points and the challenging points of the week for each person. Then spend time

praying for one another, our nation and our world.

Open with prayer. Here is a suggested prayer that Heather used with the staff recently:

Lord, calm us into a quietness that heals and listens

Gentle us, into an unclenched moment, a deep breath, a letting go of heavy expectancies, of

shriveling anxieties, of dead certainties, that, softened by the silence, surrounded by the light,

and open to the mystery, we may be found by wholeness, upheld by the unfathomable,

entranced by the simple, and filled with the joy that is you.

Gather us now to be with you as you are with us. Soothe our tiredness; quiet our fretfulness;

curb our aimlessness; relieve our compulsiveness; let us be easy for a moment.

O Lord, release us from the fear and guilt that grips us so tightly; from the expectations and

opinions that we so tightly grip, that we may be open to receiving what you give, to risking

something genuinely new, to learning something refreshingly different.

O God, gather us to be with you as you are with us. Deepen our wounds into wisdom; shape our

weaknesses into compassion; gentle our envy into enjoyment, our fear into trust, our guilt into

honesty, our accusing fingers into tickling ones. O God, gather us to be with you as you are with

us.

Lord, thank you for each moment, for the listening, the unguarded word, for the fragile

openness, the accepted difference, for our passionate hearts, and the trust rooting in us. Praise

be to you for this day and another chance to live and love.

The word from our “language of faith” that was the focus of the sermon is the word “atonement.”

● Is the word “atonement” familiar to you? If so, how have you heard it used?

Read 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

● What is reconciliation? What does it mean in general and in different contexts?

● What does it mean to you that God has reconciled us to himself in Christ?

● Jonny mentioned that for some people the image of the cross is terrifying? Does anyone

have that experience or feeling?

● What is the most powerful thing about the cross for you?

[Some translations use the word “atonement” while some use the term “reconciliation” or

“restored relationship.” Here are examples:

Romans 5:11

And not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have

now received the atonement. (1599 Geneva Bible)

Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we

have now received reconciliation. (NIV)

● Without being a bible translation scholar what are other words or phrases you can think

of that might describe what God did for us in Christ on the cross?]

● Jonny ended with this question: Where do you most need to see God revealed in the

crucified Christ - not as distant or condemning but as the one who moved toward you

and others in love?

Close by praying for our world, our church, and for one another.