The Mediator is Always Misunderstood

This past week I spent a (rough) day in legal mediation. No worries, not my own, but just as support for someone else. And I just want to say, man! Those mediators have a tough job. The man spends the whole time running between two rooms where the two parties are situated and when he is in our room, he represents the other side, when he is in their room he represents us. I can only say that if he represented us as well as he represented them then we had really good representation. But the thing is, no one likes you! Everyone thinks you are taking sides. But really, he’s not. It’s understood that he is the mediator. This little window into the abyss of our legal system really enlightened me as to why people get so angry at reconciliations. The other day I attempted, in vain, to moderate a slight, difference of opinion if you will between some young folk (ah… the smell of teen spirit). It didn’t go well. I was totally misunderstood and the point was not only well taken, but completely lost. But after the little mediation mingle, I realized the difficulty yet the beauty of it all. Given that I really had not accounted for immaturity (I forget what it is to be a teenager sometimes… just sometimes), the two situations were really mirror images. In both I saw how both sides of the dispute were clouded by their own inability to see and think beyond themselves, not to the other end of the dispute, but to what the neutral party was offering.

It brings to mind how little we appreciate and understand the great work of Jesus. Hebrews tells us that …

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Amen.