Christians, as the Body of Christ, make God visible in the world. When people ask “Where is God in the midst of all this?”, it should be the Church who hears and authenticates their complaint, just as it should be the Church who answers in word and deed. The mystery of the Church requires that we love each other in visible and tangible ways, to portray the visible, tangible love of God. Because what we do is what God is doing. We are God’s hands. We are God’s voice. We are God’s.
Christ will never be visible to the world unless the church begins to act the way he did.
This is hard news, because too often we are a shabby Christ. We become preoccupied with things Christ largely ignored: the hot issues of the day, government, war and the military, doctrinal dispute. We neglect the people Christ came to heal: the sick, the low, the wounded, the blind, the disenfranchised, the outcast, the penitent, the sinner.
We must repent of our shabbiness and better represent Christ. We must strive for unity, love, charity, and mercy so the world can be reminded that God is, once again, with us. Only this time, his body is not limited to one small place in space, but has diversified into two billion franchises across the globe. Then they will know that when they speak, God hears, and when they ask for help, Christ’s Body will come.
Adapted from Why God Died