No Body but Yours

By: Scott Armstrong

Key Verse: “As you have sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18).

In the moments before Jesus was handed over to be crucified, he spends time with his disciples in the upper room. And he ends his time with them by praying one of the most amazing prayers ever recorded (John 17). Jesus prays for himself, for his disciples, and even for you and me! It is a prayer of unity, a prayer of protection, but also a prayer of sending. As the very Father has sent his Son, now Jesus sends us. After Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, we know that through the power of the Holy Spirit, WE are his plan to save the world. We’re it! You and I and the Church through all of time is his method of sharing love with the broken and hurting.

The Christian mystic, St. Teresa of Avila, said it this way in the 1500s: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

That’s a high calling, Church. He’s sent us. Now go.

Prayer: Lord, I do not feel worthy to be your hands and feet. But I know I am the only way many of my family and neighbors and coworkers will ever experience you. So move in me through your Holy Spirit so that they will know you. Amen.