Christ Has a Body, and It’s More Important Than You

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

You have been given a Christmas tree full of spiritual gifts from God, the giver of every good gift.  God has blessed you beyond your ability to understand.  He does this because He loves you and has drawn you into His spiritual life, which you have become a part of through His Son Jesus Christ.  Having been united with God and made a partaker of Him, we are made into the Body of Christ.  Having fed us our daily bread of Jesus Christ, the spiritual food and the bread which comes down from heaven, we are made into the Body of Christ, the Church.

The Body of Christ has many members, but there is only one body, and therefore there is a common purpose of that common body: and that is to be about our Father’s business, to go and minister as Jesus Christ to the world.  We are the Body of Christ on earth.  Because God has sucked us up into His life, we reflect who He is.  God the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, has made us a unity in diversity.  We are one Body of Christ composed of many members.

But often it’s difficult for us to see the unity.  In the ancient world and in traditional cultures, the fact that we are members of something larger than ourselves was understood.  In ancient Greece, you were not a generic “Greek” but were proudly a Spartan or an Athenian or a Trojan.  You were a member of a particular polis or city-state which gave you your identity.

We, indeed, are members of a particular polis, too.  We are citizens of heaven and members of the New Jerusalem that comes down from heaven, which is the Church.  And we are one.

But in our individualistic culture, it’s hard to see this.  My consciousness whispers to me, and my culture screams at me, that I am me, Charles Erlandson, a rugged (O.K. not so rugged in my case) individualist.  I call the shots around here, and there’s only room in this body for one sheriff, and that’s me, Charles Erlandson.  Yes, sometimes it benefits me, Charles Erlandson, to think of others or work with them.  But basically life is about me, Charles Erlandson.

X!  Wrong answer!

We are given the gifts of God because God loves us, but out of His love God has made us the Body of Christ and members of Christ.  Therefore, “the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all” (verse 7.)

In a sense, the way we use our gifts is selfish.  Here’s my reasoning.  My identity is no longer just me, Charles Erlandson, but Charles Erlandson a member of Christ.  My fundamental identity is that I’m a Christian, a member of the Body of Christ, united to God.  My self  is, in reality, a member of Jesus Christ, and so whenever I edify the Body of Christ, I am edifying a part of myself.  If I, therefore, do good things for the Body, I am doing them for myself as well because we’re all connected.  When I edify you, I edify Christ, and I am a partaker of Christ.

For this reason when someone at Good Shepherd Church rejoices, I am to rejoice with them.  If they suffer, I am to suffer with them.  This is not merely a matter of trying to muster up some sympathy with myself: this is part of me that I’m talking about.  When a member of the Body is rejoicing or suffering, I am rejoicing or suffering.

John Donne wrote: “The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingrafted into the body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me: all mankind is of one author and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated.

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontorywere, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Every member must act as God has gifted him to.  We’re all members, and furthermore, we are exactly the members that God intended for us to be.  “God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased” (verse 18.)  It’s God who made you who you are and God who gave you the gifts you have.  If He made you a nose, then do the best job of sensing and taking life-giving oxygen into the body that you can.  If He made you a hallux (big toe), then do the best job of supporting and guiding the body that you can.  (I think maybe I’m the spleen or the endoplasmic reticulum – I don’t know.)

It’s tempting to say “Look at ___________.  I wish I had his gifts and his job.”  Be content with who God has made you.  You may not be the part of the body that gets the most attention but you are still just as important.  He who made the Body also made its members, and He knows what He’s doing.  As Paul taught in Chapter 7: “as God has distributed to each one, as the Lord has called each one, so let him walk,” (verse 17), and: “Let each one remain in the state to which he was called” (verse 24.)  God, the creator of the Body, the God whose Body we are, has called you to be who you are in the body.  Therefore rejoice!

Intelligent Design scientists argue that living organisms have “irreducible complexity,” that is, that the parts of the body, for example, all work together in such complex ways and with so many parts connected and involved that the whole must work together as a system.  For example, in order to hear, much more is necessary than just an ear.  All of the parts of the auditory system must be present and in working order. If you take away any one of these parts, you won’t be able to hear.  In order to hear, the ear drum, the hammer, anvil and stirrup bones, the inner ear membrane, the cochlea, the liquid inside the cochlea, the tiny hairs that transmit the vibrations from the liquid to the underlying sensory cells, the sensory cells themselves, the nerve network running from the sensory cells to the brain, and the hearing center in the brain must all exist in complete working order.  And that’s just the ear, and only part of what is involved.

But what happens when some of the Body members have atrophied or have amputated themselves from the Body?  In our physical bodies, we know all too well what happens when some of our members aren’t working right: the rest of the body suffers and can even die.  What happens when some of the members of the Body of Christ have gone AWOL or don’t show up for work?  The Body of Christ is weakened and becomes sick.

We are the Body of Jesus Christ, and you are all members of that Body.  It’s time we started believing and living as if we believed this.

I know a great way to start – but I’ll have to tell you tomorrow!

Prayer:  O Almighty God, who hast knit thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord; Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which thou has prepared for them that unfeignedly love thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Points for Meditation:

1.  What kind of member of the Body of Christ are you?  Not just what gifts and talents do you have, but are you a healthy and contributing member?

2.  Find one way to rejoice today with a Christian rejoices or one way to suffer with one who suffers. 

Resolution:  I resolve to spend some time today meditating on how I am a part of Jesus Christ by being a part of His Church, His Body. 

Jan van Eyck – Adoration of the Lamb – U.S. Public Domain