Beautiful Trauma?
I was driving across town the other morning, and on comes this song: “What About Us?” “What about us? What about all the times you said you had the answers? What about all the broken happy ever afters? What about us? What about all the plans that ended in disaster? What about love? What about trust? What about us?”
The song is by the artist Pink and is part of her latest album “Beautiful Trauma.” The title of Pink’s album makes a theologically correct statement about human nature! The entire human race is one, gigantic beautiful trauma! How so? When we look at the world there is spectacular beauty. As people created in God’s image, we have this extraordinary potential and intelligence and capacity for love. Yet whatever beauty we possess is inseparably wed to trauma! Love breaks down. Trust breaks down. Plans fail. Our “happy ever afters” always seem to come up short. Our answers prove hollow.
Listen to her describe our beauty: She sings: “We are searchlights, we can see in the dark. We are rockets, pointed up at the stars. We are billions of beautiful hearts…” But then she sings: “And you sold us down the river too far… We are problems that want to be solved. We are children that need to be loved. We were willin', we came when you called. But man, you fooled us, enough is enough...”
Now, I can assure you after just a little bit of googling, that Pink! is definitely NOT singing about the church. But what if we listened to these lyrics through the lens of the church? What if it’s the church, that sold the human race down the river? What if in the midst of the beautiful trauma, we’ve been overly content in our salvation, yet utterly delinquent in our responsibility to make Christ known? What if in all our zeal, we’ve left people feeling like projects, instead of children to be loved? What if we’ve been so overly concerned with ourselves, we’ve left the world in the cold asking, “what about us?”
Hearing the World's Cry for Hope
There is the haunting story Jesus tells in the Luke about a rich man, whose living a pretty good life. He’s dressed in purple, and fine linen, and lived in luxury every day. At his gate though, was a man named Lazarus, covered in sores, longing to eat what fell off the rich man’s table. Even [stray] dogs came and licked his sores. Pretty unbelievable right? But the rich man was ambivalent about Lazarus’ call for help.
In an Alfred Hitchcock kind of way, in the afterlife, their fortunes are reversed. The rich man is assigned to hell, and calls upon Abraham for mercy, “… have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” But Abraham reminds him, “… in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony…” The rich man begs for Abraham to send Lazarus, to warn his brothers, so they could avoid eternal torment. But Abraham refuses. When the world is crying out, “What about us?” shouldn’t we be a bit more concerned?
This morning I want emphasize several important truths about the Church. First, we are the body of Christ.
We are the Body of Christ
Think about it this way. Jesus was God in the flesh. Jesus was the tangible, physical presence of God on earth. In Jesus, God walked among us, was present among us, taught us, led us, loved us, healed us, forgave us.
But now what does Scripture teach? Ephesians 4:10 tells us, “He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to the fill the whole universe.” As amazing as it must have been to experience the presence of God in the face of Christ… Chris desires to magnify his presence even more! So how does God do this? He magnifies his presence through his Church! When Christ ascended to the heavenly realms, the Holy Spirit descended. And when the Holy Spirit descended, He took up residence in God’s people, the Church. And what does the Holy Spirit do? He deploys God’s people to shine like stars in a darkened universe!
If the world is sitting around scratching its head asking, “What about us?”, isn’t it plausible to ask, “What about the Church? What about the body of Christ? Where have we gone?” The church of New Testament was many things, but ambivalent wasn’t one of them. When the world cried out, “What about us…” the church understood itself to be the very body and presence of Christ.
Now how far should we take this idea of the church being the body of Christ? Well clearly, we’re not God. We’re not Jesus Christ Himself. We’re not the second member of the Trinity! But we should understand (nonetheless) that when we gave ourselves to Christ, we died. And now Christ is our life. We are his instruments, his conduits of grace and truth. We speak as ones speaking the very words of Christ. We serve with the strength God provides, so that in all things Christ may be glorified in us. Let’s unpack this idea a bit more.
We are a body-building body
Second, we are a body-building body. Ephesians 4:11-13 explicitly tells how God intends to fill the universe with his presence. “It was he who gave some to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers… to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:16 says, “From [Christ] the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
God has given us everything we need to build ourselves up. But build up ourselves how? Well… 1) Build ourselves up in unity, so we’re of one/same purpose. 2) Build ourselves up in knowledge so that we possess the mind of Christ. 3) Build ourselves up in maturity, so we become like Jesus, attaining to the whole mature of the fulness. 4) Build ourselves up in love, so that every member does its work.
This week, our small groups are studying Acts 6. What caused the church to flourish, is what we’ve seen all along in Acts. In Acts 2 we’re told how the church “devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer… people were selling their possession and goods, and gave to anyone as he had need.” In Acts 4 the “believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There was no needy persons among them…”
We see this pattern. First, the church saw itself as the very body/presence of Christ in the world. But second, the Church continually built itself up in unity, up in knowledge, up in maturity, up in generosity/love. So long as every part of the body of Christ does its part, nothing will be too impossible for us to do.
Now when we get to Acts 6 we’re told how the number of disciples kept increasing. With increased growth came greater challenges, and greater needs. Pressure began building on “the Apostles” to oversee the daily distribution of food to both Grecian and Hebraic Jews. But this wasn’t God’s design for the church. His design for the church is every part doing its work, every member contributing & building the body up in love.
In Acts 6:2-4 the Apostle’s say, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God to wait on tables. Choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them, and we will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.” Thriving churches push ministry outward, to every member of the church, never upward. Just like in a healthy body, every part functions as God designed, so in a healthy church body, every part functions, doing the work God prepared in advance for us to do.
We are an ever-growing body
Third, we are an ever-growing body. Acts 6:7 says, that as a result of the Apostles action, “… the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, even a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.”
It interesting that in Acts 2:47 we read the same thing. When the church had its act together, “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” Acts 5:14-16, “… more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats… crowds gathered from all the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed.”
I cannot think of any time more exciting to be part of the Body of Christ. Never has our world hungered more for the presence of Christ! Their shouting, “What about us? What’s to come of this beautiful trauma, this great earth?” Charge: 1 Peter 4:7-11