We belong. Jesus reconciles. The great divide between God and God's people is bridged. Redemption and Atonement are very real. We belong to God, so we belong with God.
God provides us with life, life abundant and life forever, but also presence, power and life. We are spiritual beings in a physical body. Life does not end when our broken bodies can no longer contain our lively spirits. As we have dwelt with the one "within whom (we) live and move and have our being", we have belonged with one another. If it is true that the "Kingdom of God is within/among you.", ("you" here is plural, as among you in the community, the body) then we must acknowledge the body within which the Kingdom dwells.
We are a part of the body of Christ. Our life with God was never without our life with one another. We are the body together. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life for His bride, His body. We belong to the one who bought us back from sin and death. We belong to the one who brought atonement with God. We belong to the one who says that our life in the spirit will remain. We belong to the one who made it all about the body and called those within the body to make it all about each other.
As Jesus and the Father are one, so our oneness is wrapped up in God's. We are one with God. All that Jesus' oneness with God means also means the same for us. We are connected. We have been reconciled. We have had our relationship with God restored. It draws us together with one another. That connection, reconciliation and restoration needs to happen within the Body. All the things that divide us and put us at odds with one another need to be discarded so that we can be the one body of Christ. Injustice, exploitation, judgment, refusal to forgive, "self-righteousness", pride, elitism, the fear and hatred of xenophobia and ethnocentrism, the arrogance of classism, the ignorance of racism need to be killed within the body in order that the body may be one within and one with God. We cannot, as a body, be right with God if we are not right within.
Thomas was right. They did not know to what Jesus was going. They did not know the pure unity, the absolute oneness and complete atonement with God to which Jesus was going and to which Jesus calls us. They did not know it because they were used to the divisions of this part of the Kingdom of God. We have learned to accept such a high level of division as "normative", that we do not have a concept of complete oneness. We are so used to acknowledging and living within our differences that we do not know what it is to live with one another simply focused on our commonality. We have been conditioned, not to belong with one another but to be at odds with one another. We have learned to live within the divisions and not reach across boundaries to reconcile with one another. We have adopted norms that not only accept but promote divisions among us. The unity to which Jesus calls us has been thwarted by our sinful divisions.
The Good News provides for us a vision of God's Will, and a hope that we as the body can be one with God by being one with each other. Jesus' Good News gives us a guide on how to live the Agape Love that bridges chasms, reconciles divisions and helps us celebrate our differences as strengths in unity. Jesus who is unified with the Father and Body, calls us to be unified as a body in Him, and gives us the tools for building the unity we need in the body. It is then that our faith will have allowed us as a body to do miraculous and great works. Until then, like Thomas, we just will not "get it".
Pastor Jamie
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