How do we build up the Body of Christ?
Jesus’ Last Supper Discourse, in John’s Gospel, aims to give his disciples a path to follow, a sense of what they will be dealing with once he has died, risen and ascended. He tells them he is going to prepare a place for them in His Father’s house, to enable their access to the very heart of God the Father. Jesus, the perfect revelation of God, is the way, the truth, and the life, and it is our union in him that draws us into the perfect love shared by the Father and the Son and, ultimately, into perfect union with God. But first, we must learn as best we can to be a revelation of that love in this world through our communal existence as the Body of Christ.
The early Christians did not always find this easy to do. In the Acts of the Apostles, the Twelve call together the community of the disciples in order to appoint seven reputable men whose job it would be to ensure that no one in the community would be neglected in the daily distribution. These men manifest the love of God to the whole community through their shepherding of a people trying to find their way. In so doing, they are building up the church. The First Letter of Peter exhorts the Christian community to let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, serving as living stones through their baptism into Christ, which gave them a life they did not have before, and through it, access to eternal life. As living stones, they, like we, must serve one another; we must be life-giving as God to others, who loves justice and right (Psalm 33), is life-giving to all.
In the spiritual house that is the Body of Christ, Jesus is our cornerstone; all other living stones are necessary to the structure so that together we can be one church united in God’s love. To fulfill our charge as living stones, we must do as Jesus did, trying to live and grow in the context of that shared existence, embodying his gospel of love, mercy and compassion, confident that we are following the path Christ offers as the way, the truth, and the light, a sure path that leads to perfect union in the Lord.
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
No comments:
Post a Comment