Missio Dei: WK2 - FRI
GOD’S ANSWER TO THE BROKEN WORLD
Isaiah 65:17-19 (NLT) “Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth, and no one will even think about the old ones anymore. Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation! And look! I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness. Her people will be a source of joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and delight in my people. And the sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it no more.”
In 1994, Rwanda collapsed. In about 100 days, around 800,000 people were killed, often by neighbors, coworkers, even friends. The country was shattered. And then, years later, Rwanda tried something extraordinary. They turned to an old traditional system called Gacaca courts. Community gatherings where perpetrators confessed, where victims spoke, where communities worked through what had happened together. It was not perfect. Nothing could be. But in village after village, people who had done terrible things and people who had suffered them found a way to keep living in the same place. Not forgetting or pretending, but going forward. It is one of the most haunting pictures of restoration I know.
Isaiah 65 is God’s version of this, on a cosmic scale. Not evacuation from the broken world but renewal of it. A world where weeping is gone, and there is no more crying. A city of happiness and God himself rejoicing over his people. It’s not a metaphor dressed up as comfort, it’s the actual destination of history.
The theological word for this is shalom. Shalom is not simply peace, in the thin sense of an absence of conflict. Shalom means everything is as it should be, it is a world that is complete, whole, and rightly ordered. It is a return to what original creation looked like on the sixth day. It is what Isaiah 65 describes at the end of the story. And the mission of God is the slow, patient work of shalom breaking into the present, partially and imperfectly, until the day it arrives completely.
Rwanda’s Gacaca courts did not fix what happened. They could not, however they were signs. Small, costly, partial signs that something better was possible. Every act of justice, every genuine reconciliation, every person freed from something that held them, these are signs of the same kind. The future arriving in the present. God’s answer to the world’s groaning, and we get to be part of the announcement.
Isaiah 65:17-19 (NLT) “Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth, and no one will even think about the old ones anymore. Be glad; rejoice forever in my creation! And look! I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness. Her people will be a source of joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and delight in my people. And the sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it no more.”
In 1994, Rwanda collapsed. In about 100 days, around 800,000 people were killed, often by neighbors, coworkers, even friends. The country was shattered. And then, years later, Rwanda tried something extraordinary. They turned to an old traditional system called Gacaca courts. Community gatherings where perpetrators confessed, where victims spoke, where communities worked through what had happened together. It was not perfect. Nothing could be. But in village after village, people who had done terrible things and people who had suffered them found a way to keep living in the same place. Not forgetting or pretending, but going forward. It is one of the most haunting pictures of restoration I know.
Isaiah 65 is God’s version of this, on a cosmic scale. Not evacuation from the broken world but renewal of it. A world where weeping is gone, and there is no more crying. A city of happiness and God himself rejoicing over his people. It’s not a metaphor dressed up as comfort, it’s the actual destination of history.
The theological word for this is shalom. Shalom is not simply peace, in the thin sense of an absence of conflict. Shalom means everything is as it should be, it is a world that is complete, whole, and rightly ordered. It is a return to what original creation looked like on the sixth day. It is what Isaiah 65 describes at the end of the story. And the mission of God is the slow, patient work of shalom breaking into the present, partially and imperfectly, until the day it arrives completely.
Rwanda’s Gacaca courts did not fix what happened. They could not, however they were signs. Small, costly, partial signs that something better was possible. Every act of justice, every genuine reconciliation, every person freed from something that held them, these are signs of the same kind. The future arriving in the present. God’s answer to the world’s groaning, and we get to be part of the announcement.
- What picture of restoration or reconciliation gives you hope?
- Where do you see glimpses of God’s future kingdom breaking into the present?
- How can you become an active participant in bringing shalom to your community?
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