Proper 11 / Pentecost 9 / Ordinary Time 16
Devotional
Water From the Rock
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle C
Object:
He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.
-- Colossians 1:18
Paul's understanding of the church was that it was far more than a collection of individuals of similar belief or even an organization that attempted to perpetuate the faith. For Paul the church was, in some mysterious way, the continuance of the body of Christ on earth. This Christ was the very image of the invisible God who was the author of all that existed. Paul made a cosmic claim for Christ. "For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross." Christ became the very nexus of history around which everything -- past, present, and future -- revolved. And this Christ was the head or the source of the church.
Paul was fully aware of the frailty of the church, but he saw its suffering, and Paul's suffering as part of that body, as a continuation of the sufferings of Christ. In the same way that the first body of Christ had to suffer, so did the second or continuance of that body have to suffer if God was to be glorified. In the same way that it did not make sense to the world that God's Messiah would suffer, it also did not make sense to the world that if the church were truly the body of Christ it would suffer.
The suffering of the church was necessary to effect the reconciliation of Christ. While Paul was speaking of the Jew/Gentile division, he could be speaking of the other divisions within the religious world when he said, "And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him...." The task of the church is far more than just to nurture its members in the traditions of the faith. The task of the church is to be God's instrument of reconciliation among all things.
-- Colossians 1:18
Paul's understanding of the church was that it was far more than a collection of individuals of similar belief or even an organization that attempted to perpetuate the faith. For Paul the church was, in some mysterious way, the continuance of the body of Christ on earth. This Christ was the very image of the invisible God who was the author of all that existed. Paul made a cosmic claim for Christ. "For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross." Christ became the very nexus of history around which everything -- past, present, and future -- revolved. And this Christ was the head or the source of the church.
Paul was fully aware of the frailty of the church, but he saw its suffering, and Paul's suffering as part of that body, as a continuation of the sufferings of Christ. In the same way that the first body of Christ had to suffer, so did the second or continuance of that body have to suffer if God was to be glorified. In the same way that it did not make sense to the world that God's Messiah would suffer, it also did not make sense to the world that if the church were truly the body of Christ it would suffer.
The suffering of the church was necessary to effect the reconciliation of Christ. While Paul was speaking of the Jew/Gentile division, he could be speaking of the other divisions within the religious world when he said, "And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him...." The task of the church is far more than just to nurture its members in the traditions of the faith. The task of the church is to be God's instrument of reconciliation among all things.
