Nougat 1

I love my siblings! Especially my sisters, who were my first friends and continue to be my best friends in life. There are times when we look and act exactly alike, it’s scary – to us and others. Yet we are each our own individual selves. As children of the funky era, one of our anthems was, ‘we are family! I got all my sisters with me!’ Of course, the sisters were not always blood sisters, but the sentiment was the same.

Not everyone is blessed with siblings by blood. But, as members of the body of Christ, we are blessed with more siblings than we can count. And that’s the message of today’s Holy Nougat

“Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.” ‭‭Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭4‬-‭5‬ ‭NLT‬‬

So yesterday, we focused on our being where our Creator wants us and growing where we are planted. Now, we shift our metaphors a bit to focus on the Body of Christ, ie the family of God. Now, you can understand my reference to my own siblings, including my younger brother, if you recall that I was raised in the 70s and 80s. In that era, at least for the churches we attended, every adult was “Sister So & So”, Brother So & So’ or ‘Aunty/Uncle So & So’. We took the One Body principle very seriously.

Of course, as the Jamaican adage states so colorfully, teeth and tongue must meet (quarrels and misunderstandings will occur in relationships), and there were times we didn’t want to be kin to any of the So & Sos. Needless to say, when those occasions came, we (or perhaps more honestly, I) could find every reason why we weren’t really related to ‘dem deh people deh’ (people such as those), but it was a little too late to disown them. The closeness might be reduced, but we are still members of the Body of Christ! For, at the end of the day at Calvary, Jesus died for ALL!

And that’s what unites us as members of Christ’s Body – nothing else! Our social, physical, financial or even emotional status has no bearing on our presence in Christ’s body. Jesus did not discriminate on the Cross. But for Zacchaeus and Luke, one might argue that He came for the poor, the infirm, and the needy – and He did (see Luke 5:27-39). And, having come for all sorts, Zacchaeus and Nicodemus included, we have been assigned different roles.

So the Woman at the Well was ‘Chief Evangelist’, while Joseph of Arimathea was a ‘Secret Disciple’. She literally brought an entire Gentile community to Christ, and he bought the tomb where Jesus was buried. Whether they ever met on earth or not, they were, and still are, members of the Body of Christ, the family of God. And because they were, I know that there’s room in the family for me. And for you too.

So, if no one else has told you since you chose to accept Jesus as Saviour, Welcome to the Family, the Family of God! I love my family; no doubt about it! And as members of the body of Christ, that includes you!

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May all we seek be found in Christ