Reality Check
2 Corinthians 4:7
Originally scheduled for April 17
Have you ever considered the power that the average
Christian possesses? Consider this:
·
Such a person has direct access to the throne of grace. Not only is
he permitted to talk to God, he is commanded to approach that throne
boldly.
·
By the appointment of God, such a person is an ambassador of Christ
— which is to say, an ambassador of reconciliation. You have the
ability to reconcile people to God.
·
Most of all, such a person is a child of the King of the universe.
God is not a remote, vague force but the one whom I call “Father.”
So why is it that nobody notices this? It is because God
has packaged this power in what St. Paul called “vessels of clay.”
You and I are made of the dust of the earth. What’s remarkable about
this is that Christ himself assumed the same kind of body — dust of
the earth, a vessel of clay. Had the authorities of his time seen
him in his glorified body (as at the Transfiguration), they would
not have been able to deny his power and authority. But he was
concealed in the same kind of body you and I have, and they did not
recognize him. We are made of the same “stuff”; our bodies are made
of the same kind of atoms; we possess the same Holy Spirit. We are
“little Christs”; that is to say, Christians.
We need sometimes to be reminded of this. After all, in
instituting communion our Lord told us that “this is my body, this
is my blood.” It’s made of the same stuff as well; just a different
arrangement of atoms. It is a sign to us that he came in the flesh,
not as some sort of spiritual phantom. But we may turn that around;
he is physically just as real as these elements. That’s one of the
messages of communion; your Lord came in the flesh, just the same
kind of flesh that you have as your body. When you partake of
communion, you acknowledge this symbolically. Indeed, in communion
we proclaim that we have met the
real God, with a
real body just like ours,
who suffered a real death
on the cross as our atoning sacrifice, experienced a
real resurrection from the
grave — and is really
coming again to judge the living and the dead.
Communion is not trivial; but it is very real.
