The Fourteenth Day of Advent

The Fourteenth Day of Advent

Saturday, December 16, 2017

Christ is the head of the church, 

his body, and is himself its Savior. . . . The church is subject to Christ. . . .

Ephesians 5:23b-24a

Since I had the surgery to correct the torn rotator cuff in my right arm, I have been going regularly for therapy. Three days a week I have gone down to TLC for their great team to help me fully recover – or as fully as possible. The atmosphere there is good – kind and knowledgeable therapists, a lot of laughter and encouragement, and every day music from another era, the kind we used to whistle and hum when I was young. On more than one day I heard Frank Sinatra crooning, “I Did It My Way,” and I hummed along.

That may be okay for Sinatra, or for me to hum, or for a two-year-old who refuses help putting her shoes on, but it is not okay for the church of Jesus Christ! We take great joy in Christmas and in thinking of Jesus as a tiny infant, but according to the scripture above, we need to take a look at where he fits in our doing it our way all through the year.

In looking at scriptures to use in this Advent devotional, I thought of words that are used to define who Christ is and what he does. Inevitably that took me to several that call him the head. “This is Christ’s body,” Paul writes, “and that holy body has a head – Christ!” To be quite honest, I was disturbed as I thought about that. If this is his church and the plans for it are in his head, how dare we ever play Frank Sinatra and try to do it our way? Through his ministry, atonement, and resurrection, Christ earned the right to be the head of the church he established!

Our Spiritual Formation Chair, Marilyn Watson, has been encouraging us to light a tiny candle at every meeting, at every Bible study, in every class, every time two of three of us gather. There is no magic in the candle, but it serves as a good reminder that we are part of a body of which Jesus Christ is head, that he in the person of the Holy Spirit is part of every group that gathers. Maybe the candle will encourage us to remember who is in charge. Maybe he is speaking at our meeting, and we aren’t hearing his voice.

Father, somehow it seems very comforting to me to know that we are not in charge. It’s good to know that you, who have the big picture, can lead us in the way that is best if we will just allow it. Help us not to yield to the Frank Sinatra mentality. Help us to instead, do everything your way – from the simplest task to the most complicated. Enter all our services and all our meetings and all our studies! We’ll yield. You take charge! Amen.

The Light of the World
prepared for Homosassa United Methodist Church, 2008,
by Patience Nave, Christian Education Coordinator.