3 November 2006

The week ends with another image of the Body of Christ from "Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

The flesh borne by Christ was sinful flesh - yet borne without sin. Wherever his human body is, there all flesh is being accepted. "Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows." Only be bearing all our infirmities and sorrows in his own body was Jesus able to heal the infirmities and sorrows of human nature. "He was wounded for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities." He bore our sin, and was therefore able to forgive sin; for in his body our sinful flesh had been "accepted." This is why Jesus accepted sinners: he bore them in his own body. In Jesus the "acceptable year of the Lord" had dawned.

In just such a way that Jesus took on the sin of the world and "in his body our sinful flesh had been accepted," isn't that how we as the body of Christ in the world today bring this refreshing and liberating and forgiving word to all. We take in that which is sinful - all of us - and we accept it through a love for all that is the power of transformation and a part of the promised Reign of God. We live already in the midst of this "acceptable year of the Lord" and therefore we could argue that the church as the body of Christ has a life that is the life of the Christ - even now. In Christ, Jesus, once and for all the sins of the world have been defeated and we have been raised up with him to new life. The new life therefore is ours for the living - living that is, as the one who raised us up. It is within that life that the church really begins to be the followers of Jesus. As we all know, we (the church - all of us within it) rarely risk to go there...to follow...to accept in the radical manner of our Lord. We would put conditions on the way we give our lives to others and what we expect back from other. We can call ourselves evangelical (good news) people until it means that we really do give ourselves away to other - freely and without condition.

Connection: What are the conditions we put on the Christ-like love that has been extended to us? What is necessary for us to become more bold in our expression of this love for others?

Come, Lord, Jesus, be our guest and teach us to bow and bend so that we are able to greet others with the boundless mercy and hopefulness of your Reign in which we already reside with the whole body of Christ. Let us be this living presence of your love for the world. Amen.