Being an Ambassador Two Times Over
Besides becoming a Christian during my sophomore year, the highlight of my college career at Syracuse University was my spring semester junior year studying in Madrid. I loved everything about the country: the people, the language, the culture, the history, and the food.
Halfway through our time there, a tour group organized by Syracuse University stopped in Madrid for two days. The students from our program were invited to an evening reception to welcome the guests and talk about our experiences in Spain. Two of the tourists were an SU graduate in her late 40s and her daughter who was attending another college in Upstate New York. Since we had such a delightful evening, I offered to show them around the city the next afternoon. They readily agreed, so the following day I became an ambassador of sorts.
An effective ambassador bridges both countries involved and must have a thorough knowledge of and love for both. Someone with only marginal knowledge of or who is lukewarm about one of the countries would make a pretty lousy ambassador. I obviously understood American culture, and since we had been in Spain for a couple of months, my knowledge of life there was pretty good.
The next afternoon as I showed my new friends some of Madrid’s highlights, I enthusiastically explained why I thought Spain is such a great country. One of our stops was El Parque de Buen Retiro, Madrid’s equivalent of New York’s Central Park. As we sipped our Cokes in the park’s an outdoor café, I had the chance to become an ambassador of another type.
I had become a Christian a year-and-a-half earlier and was eager to let as many people as possible know how great it is to know Jesus. We had a friendly chat, and I was able to clarify some of their misconceptions about what it means to be a Christian. They thought the main thing was trying to be a good person who does the right thing. I explained that although that’s important, it doesn’t deal with our separation from God caused by our own sin and that the only remedy is claiming the forgiveness Jesus offers through his death and resurrection. I’m not sure they entirely grasped the essence of the message, but they seemed to enjoy the conversation and thanked me for my hospitality.
The heart of Paul’s message in 2 Corinthians 5:14-21 is that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting our sins against us. This includes explaining that God has committed this message of reconciliation to us, his followers. Then comes this pivotal verse:
We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God – 2 Corinthians 5:20
My fun afternoon with those friendly ladies allowed me to be a double ambassador. I wanted them to catch both my love for Spain and my enthusiasm over the forgiveness of sin and the new life available only through Christ.
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You obviously understand American culture. But how well do you grasp the principles of the Kingdom of God? What are you doing to grow in that knowledge?
Have you ever – as Paul states in 2 Corinthians 5:20 – implored anyone to be reconciled to God? If so, how did it go? What steps can you take to become more motivated and better equipped to be a better ambassador.
. . . If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new is here.
2 Corinthians 5:17