Thinking About the Body of Christ

From today's seasonal daily e-mail for Lent from The Upper Room:

• THE WORKS OF MERCY
  
  FEED THOSE who are hungry. Shelter the stranger. Visit the sick. Minister to the prisoners. Bury the dead. Convert sinners. Instruct the ignorant. Counsel the doubtful. Comfort the sorrowing. Bear wrongs patiently. Forgive injuries. Pray for others.
  
  It is not necessary to sense the presence of angels or to feel the encircling energy of the communion of saints to live into the reality that someone is watching over us. We can BECOME presence for one another. We can be the arms, the legs, the feet, the heart of Christ in the world.
  
  -- Wendy M. Wright
  THE TIME BETWEEN (emphases mine)

Not only CAN we be the arms, the legs, the feet, the heart of Christ in the world, but we are CALLED to be, COMMANDED to be. This is the purpose of the church, is it not - to be the body of Christ in the world? We, as the church, are not just some mystical body, part of a metaphor about our relationship to Christ, the Father, the Spirit, and one another; but we are a physical body that also has flesh, just as Christ the incarnate Son of God had flesh and walked among us. Let us seriously contemplate what this means in our local area, and then join together with and act in the work that God is already doing among us.

| mission, body of Christ, church |