[Uniqueness of Christ] Jesus’ Unique RequestSample

The Body of Christ: The Church

Jesus Christ is unique, and all the things He did also have that characteristic. So is the request that He made of us, understanding what happened to His body.

Jesus suffered brokenness in His flesh that resulted in a new path for us—the pathway to God, the possibility of being justified, and having access to His presence.

Through the piercing, the crushing, and the scourging of Christ’s body, the birth of something new became possible. From the ugliness of what was done to Jesus was born the beauty of the body of Christ—the church, the body of believers: us.

In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul affirms that the church is made of believers, that we are each different members of that great body, and that we all belong to one another. Without the brokenness of the body of Jesus, we could not be saved individually and as a group. As the body of Christ, we have in common that Jesus was broken, and His blood was shed for us. That is what unites us.

In his letters to the Corinthians, Paul writes that the body of Christ is also broken through the many tribulations it lives through; that it is troubled, persecuted, struck down, but not destroyed; that it always bears the marks of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that His life may be manifested in us.

The body of Christ is the image and reflection of the actual body of Christ. We were created in that likeness, and to reflect it, we no longer live for ourselves. Our life now has a new meaning; its center is Jesus. The access to that center is the cross, and the whole universe revolves around that center. When we align our life with the cross, we no longer live for ourselves but for Him. Then we can lead others to align their life with that center so that the beauty of the body of Christ is manifested. We can be the image of Christ to the world and bring life to others through Him.

We must ask ourselves, what does the world see in us? Do they see the body of Christ? That should be our goal, that every person may see Jesus and His sacrifice through us.