united for eternity

I talked about this in chapel the other day and thought, "may as well post this on here." And, as you can see, that is what I did!

This past year, God has been teaching me the deeper meaning of what it means to be brother and sisters in Christ. Of course, I have failed time and time again, but I have written down some thought that I would like to share with you. The title brother and sister in Christ is tossed around too gently in a lot of Christian settings. The meaning of ‘brother and sister’ is a profoundly deep one. It means we are all connected to each other through Christ. We have all died to ourselves, been unified in Christ and therefore are one with each other. Christ has married the Church. And the Church, the body of Christ, is made up of brothers and sisters. Through his love and sacrifice we become one with Christ, and through that with each other. 

For believers, Jesus becomes the mediator between us. So what does this mean? Bonhoeffer explains it as such; “It means, first, that a Christian needs others because of Jesus Christ. It means, second, that a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ. It means, third, that in Jesus Christ we have been chosen from eternity, accepted in time, and united for eternity.” United for eternity. How often do we see our friends or those ‘hello acquaintances’ in the hall and think, “Hey I’m going to be united with them for eternity!” We don’t often think like that but what an exciting thought! We are all so blessed. So many of us live in this community of believers, go to chapel, go to church with each other, go to prayer meetings, eat and hang out with each other. And yet there is so much separation. We live bound by the psychological and social ‘rules’ of the world when we should see those in Christ through the spirit. Of course I am not suggesting that we abandon all common etiquette and become socially awkward. But if we learn to be less like the world even in this one area, think about how unified the body of Christ could become! In practical ways, it could mean trying to understand where your roommate is coming from when she continually leaves her dirty clothes on the floor. Or maybe it could mean befriending someone outside of your friend group that is generally ostracized. Or being patient with someone when you’re working on a group project. Instead of judging these people based on minor negative personality traits, getting angry, and talking about them to your friends, think about about them as brothers and sisters in Christ. Someone who you will be united with forever. The perspective changes a bit and you immediately start seeing them in light of their spirit, and these things that annoy you suddenly aren’t quite as important. It amazes me that in a community where we all claim to profess the love and grace of Jesus, there is so much judgment, gossip, and indifference to the people that surround us. And I, unfortunately, can not exclude myself from this. 

I was talking to a friend the other day and she said God spoke to her very clearly about this one day. She was talking to someone and was about to say something not entirely uplifting about someone else and then suddenly Jesus spoke to her saying, “She’s a person and she’s my child and your sister. See her as I do.” If we cannot see people, especially our brothers and sisters like Jesus does then we do not fully belong in the body of Christ. There is so much separation, strife, dissension and hurt caused among Christians because we fail to understand the depth of our unity with other believers. Without Christ, there is conflict between God and man and between man and man. Christ is our Mediator between God and his children and between our brothers and sisters. 

The Reformers described our death and life as being found outside of ourselves. They said, “Our righteousness is an “alien righteousness,” a righteousness that comes from outside of us.” What they meant by this was that the Christian is dependent on the Word of God spoken to Him. He is pointed outward, to the Word that comes to him. In ourselves, we are destitute and dead. Bonhoeffer again writes: “But God had put this Word into the mouth of others in order that it may be communicated to us. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find his living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of a man. He needs his brother as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker that the Christ in the word of his brother. And that also clarifies the goal of all Christian community: they meet one another as bringers of the message of salvation.” What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. 

And I will quote Bonhoeffer again on community, “The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity.” Let us work towards brotherly community through humbly accepting that Christ is the only reason we have one another. 

By God’s grace may we cease to see each other on the emotional and psychological level, but that we may see each other spiritually, until Christ is the only thing between us.