Week 46—Friday Colossians 1:11-14
Colossians 1:11-14
Week 46—FRIDAY
“O JESUS, IF IT WEREN’T FOR YOU
I’D NOT BE A CHRISTIAN FIVE MINUTES”
But, someone objects, if Christ’s body is a crucified body then how can you continue to believe in his power and redemption? Why doesn’t he redeem his own body and come down from the cross? It is the same thing that was thrown “in his teeth” when he hung on the cross before: “Let him come down from the cross and then we will believe in him.” But he was saving others, himself he could not save. Now again he is saving others, including his own body, the church, hence he cannot save himself this continuous pain. But this pain is “a pain divine”—it is redemptive.
A very sensitive and dedicated Christian, after a deep disappointment in some of her trusted colleagues, threw herself on her bed and cried, “O Jesus, if it weren’t for you I’d not be a Christian five minutes.” He held her steady through that letdown. I believe in the church because I believe in Jesus. He is redeeming it—and redeeming it the hard way. And that church will stand before him without spot or wrinkle.
But to talk about the church now as though it were the body of Christ in that final sense is unrealistic. Today it is the crucified body of Christ—crucified on the cross of its own unfaithfulness. And we must suffer, as Paul did, to help make up a share of Christ’s sufferings for this crucified body. We must feel faithless in its faithlessness, feel a sense of shame in its shameless betrayal, be crucified in its self-imposed crucifixion, and be humiliated in its pride. Some bishops at the World Council of Churches in Delhi pompously and piously said: “We’ve been very generous in being willing to give Communion to those not of our denomination.” “Willing to give”—but to take? No. And yet they talk about “the body of Christ.” Nail-pierced body—yes. And such attitudes are a part of the piercing.
Dear Lord and Father, forgive us that in the name of your dear Son we crucify him again. We defend our ecclesiastical snobberies and offend Jesus in the process. Help us to bear in our own bodies his sufferings for us. In his name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I love him who loves me though he knows me.