This is a poem for the people in my World Race community; for those I did not choose – my teammates and my squadmates.
Father, give me a song. Give me a song for the people I did not choose.
We are His Bride and His Body.
We think they’re two different things, but listen!
Paul uses these two pictures for a reason.
In marriage to Him, we are His Bride,
And Christ our Bridegroom has given us His Body,
To love and to care for as our own through eternity.
Two become one.
Bone of my bone.
Flesh of my flesh.
He has cared for our bridal body by dying to make it pure,
But how are we caring for His Body of ours?
Are we breaking it to pieces?
Paul writes, “Is Christ divided?”
As we’re snapping His bones, tearing His flesh.
Yes, we’ve divided Him, carved Him up, and broken His Body.
In His covenant with Abraham thousands of years ago,
He signed with a blazing torch passing between the pieces.
That if He did not keep his covenant, He should be torn asunder like the bone and flesh before Him.
And though it was we who broke the covenant,
God has allowed Christ His Son
To be ripped asunder,
Forsaken from Him
So that we who forsook Him
Would be united to Him –
And not only to Him, but to one another.
You see, when a brother
Sins against me,
And I against my brother
I must understand
That Father, Son, and Spirit were torn in pieces so we could be whole –
Reconciled to each other.
Yet in fear we don’t do this.
We refuse vulnerability, we shun forgiveness.
Because we are sick, lame, deaf, and blind
So we continue breaking this Body to pieces.
Is this how we love the lover of our souls?
Father, forgive us.
Let us love to wholeness
Because true love on the cross
Makes pieces whole
And not the whole into pieces.
Let us stop grieving the Spirit.
Because Christ finished breaking His Body,
So why are we still breaking it?
May it be that every time we do communion
We are reminded of the union –
And the Body broken for us to offer
Holy,
Wholly
Worship.
So as we share bread and wine – Body and blood –
Together, we remember the cost of this fellowship.
Yes, we may not have chosen our brother
But one thing we can choose –
We can choose to love one another.
Because He has chosen us.
Chosen us to be vessels of his love
To be filled and to be emptied
Only to be filled again.
Amen.
