One

If you didn’t see last night’s opening ceremony to the Olympics you really missed a well orchestrated phenomenon. All controversies of this year’s events aside, it was a stunning vision from start to finish. Everything was executed with great precision and attention to detail. The most inspiring part was the unified imagery produced by more than 15,000 synchronized individuals. Several times the words of the commentators were brought back to the producer who envisioned this masterpiece and the awe of how it was being manifested in that moment.

The message China is bringing to this year’s games,
One world. One goal.

As a Christian my mind was carried to God’s plan for the body of Christ,
One body. One message.

I have actually been thinking about the importance of God’s beautiful concept of one body for awhile now. Various readings and experiences have provoked my thinking. In a way greater than how last night’s performance captured the attention of people all over this world, a unified body of Christ would captivate our dying world. No individual in last night’s performance was repeated. A few had roles that brought more personal attention than others, but each role was significant to the full picture. It was a reminder to me of the Christian’s responsibility to live out their role, the will of God for their life. It’s not about a jealous spirit of those who appear to be more visible than us. There is a purpose to our life and the picture is so much greater than any one of us. Just as last night’s performers only had a single moment before the audience of the world, we have only one life. It is brief and it’s our one chance to live it for God. When our focus turns away from self glorification to the greater message our lives take on a meaning so much larger than our human perspectives can comprehend. We will see the picture one day in its full glory. For now we need to follow our Producer, our Creator in portraying the vision He has for mankind. It’s bigger than us, but there is a role for us.

You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you're still one body. It's exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.

I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn't be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, "Get lost; I don't need you"? Or, Head telling Foot, "You're fired; your job has been phased out"? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the "lower" the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it's a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn't you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

You are Christ's body—that's who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your "part" mean anything. You're familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his "body":

I Corinthians 12:12-27 (The Message)