Following the tradition of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, on his 21st birthday Roger decided to walk on water. His pal Corky took him to the middle of the lake. Roger stepped out of the boat and nearly drowned!
Furious and confused, Roger asked his grandmother. "It's my 21st birthday, so why can't I walk across the lake like my father, his father, and his father before him?"
Granny looked into Roger's eyes and said, "Because they were born in January; you were born in July."
Being a Christian should empower us as Christ was empowered. When we are being Christ, Jesus tells us: Most assuredlythe works that I do you will do also; and greater works than these you will do, because I go to My Father (John 14:12).
How do we go about doing the works of Jesus? We must realize that we are here where we can touch others, speak to them, change their lives. In His body we do not see Jesus among us, so He has asked us to do His work.
In "Touching our loved ones inside the body of Christ" theologian Father Ron Rolheiser best illustrates how this is done.
"Imagine you are a parent who has a child who no longer goes to church, no longer prays, no longer observes the church's moral commandmentsis perhaps even openly agnostic or atheistic. What can you do?
"You can continue to pray for them and you can live out your own faith convictions, hoping that the example of your life will have power where your words are ineffectual. You can do that, but you can do more.
"You can continue to love and forgive them and insofar as they receive that love and forgiveness they are receiving love and forgiveness from God. Your touch is God's touch. Since you are part of the Body of Christ, when you touch them Christ is touching them. When you love them Christ is loving them. When you forgive them Christ is forgiving them because your touch is the church's touch.
"Part of the wonder of the incarnation is the astonishing fact that we can do for each other what Jesus did for us. Jesus gives us that power: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven... Whose sins you forgive they are forgiven (Mathew 18:18).
"If you are part of the Body of Christ, when you forgive someone, he or she is forgiven. If you love someone, he or she is being loved by Christ because the Body of Christ is not just the body of Jesus but is also the body of believers.
"To be touched, loved, and forgiven by a member of the body of believers is to be touched, loved, and forgiven by Christ as long as you continue to love that person and hold him or her in love and forgiveness, he or she is touching the 'hem of Christ's garment', is being held to the Body of Christ, and is being forgiven by God, irrespective of his or her official external relationship to the church.
"Too good to be true?" Ron says. "Yes, surely. But how else to describe the mystery of the incarnation!"
