The Heart of the Body

DAILY BYTE

The human body can seem like organized chaos. If you have ever been really ill or had an operation or known someone who was ill, you know that the body can be a churning mass of unpredictability. And sometimes when someone is unmercifully ill or overtaken by an addiction, we even say that they are imprisoned by their body.

I am known as a bit of a typhoid Mary. In fact, my best friend jokes that if any sort of strange disease is within a fifty kilometer radius, I will be happy to give it a home in my body. In fact, just about two months ago, I was visiting the doctor for a routine check-up. I was listening to my heart on the pulse-ox monitor, and it was bouncing all over the place. I started avoiding the eyes of the nurse, trying to get myself to breathe deeply and evenly. But, I will never forget the moment when that heartbeat seemed to hesitate. It paused for just a hair too long and seemed to stop. Now, I’m usually a pretty tough cookie, but when the heart, the core that supplies life to our thinking and feeling and being – when that seemed to stop working the way the heart was made to work, my whole world was thrown into chaos. It was as though I was imprisoned by the thought that if something were wrong with my heart, I could actually be prevented from living the way that I believed God was calling me to live. Knowing that my grandfather died from a congenital heart defect, I was afraid that my source of life, could actually fail me.

It was, perhaps, a bit dramatic, given that I had yet even to go to the heart specialist, so all these scenarios of death and chaos might really have been just a little too much sun, a stressful day, and not enough breakfast – which they turned out to be, thankfully. But, we all know that often, it is a different story, and it was a crisis of faith for a young person who is all too aware that life is strangely short and that the heart is strangely necessary for the body to continue to live.

But this devotional is not really about anatomy. It is about what it means to be part of the body of Christ. We must ask: what is at the heart of this body? Where is the heart of God? Well, let me suggest today that the heart of God is found at the heart of a covenant – a promise – made with God’s people – you and me – thousands of years ago. It is a covenant founded on none other than forgiveness.

I wonder what we need to do to learn more about this covenant promise that God has with us in the body of Christ. I wonder what it means for your individual life and the life of the community in which you live that through God’s love, all of your sins have already been forgiven.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed – by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry, and we humbly repent. For the sake of your son Jesus Christ have mercy on us and forgive us that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways for the glory of your name through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

SCRIPTURE READING

Colossians 3:13-15

Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.