What do puzzles and autopsy tables have in common? Welcome, Dear Christian, to a new installment for the body (no pun intended) of Christ. Will the Real Jesus please stand up?
I’ve never witnessed a real autopsy. Sure, plenty of detective shows include a character in the role of a medical examiner and scenes shot in the morgue. However, the screen between masks the grave reality.
While I have no inclination whatsoever toward dissecting dead bodies (God rest their souls), bless those who do, for their desk is an autopsy table. I much prefer a laptop on mine.
However, this Dear Christian post is akin to a scalpel in attempts to dissect a puzzling question I see among believers: Will the Real Jesus please stand up?
Stage the Scene
Puzzles and autopsy tables recently hit the ‘pattern’ cells in my brain. I have a friend who takes delight and satisfaction in putting together puzzles; the more delightfully difficult the picture, the more satisfying it is when completed. Of course, because that is a principle woven throughout life. Frame, sort, try to fit this with that, click here, set aside, study, have a go again, till finish. It’s how we learn, grow, succeed, build up, and repeat. Have you ever noticed that what you enjoy may be quite difficult but full of delight at the same time?
There is something about stick to it’iveness in brief periods and long seasons that builds fortitude and capacity. Like my puzzler friend who no longer looks for the easy but the increasingly difficult for critical mass satisfaction.
Likewise, for those who are NCIS fans, one of the early episodes featured Ducky (Dr. Mallard, the medical examiner) in the morgue with a freshly delivered 55-gallon drum containing…noooo…assorted parts of a not so fresh body. It was a puzzle of fleshly proportions as he and his assistant began to reconstruct the body on the autopsy table. A left ear here, an index finger there – right hand, not left! – femurs, toes, and the more unmentionable parts of the anatomy were plucked out of the container at random. Kind of like indiscriminately selecting puzzle pieces for assembly.
Wait a Minute. What? Ohhh…
Whenever the episode cut back to the morgue scene, the viewer witnessed the progress made – but Ducky and his cohort were far from done. When Jimmy was directed to place a left ear in its proper position in the layout of the corpse, he attempted to do so. However, the puzzle-piece body already had both a right and a left ear. Wait a minute. What? Ohhh…
They had another body on their hands.
By the time the storyline neared the final still shot signaling the end of the episode, they had – count ‘em – three bodies. For cryin’ out loud …
Kind of like “If this one’s Jesus, then who is that one and that one?
Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?
I do not believe there are three or more variations of Jesus, like assorted bodies on several autopsy tables.
Before His crucifixion, Jesus lived life on this earth as we do – in one human body of flesh and bones.
After His resurrection and ascension, dear Christian, that changed. We believers are Christ’s body in the earth.
And there are a multitude of right and left ears, hands, feet, eyes, pretty parts and not so pretty parts. The following scripture is the biblical anatomy of Body of Christ 101.
Just as each of us has one body with many members,
and these members do not all have the same function,
so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
Romans 12:4-5
So why is there this propensity to claim a version of Jesus (which of course is the one we’re comfortable with), and toss the rest of His members back into the 55-gallon drum like so many unwanted, discarded body parts?
The Real Jesus looks strangely incomplete and lacking from the outside when the tribes on the inside are intent on their own version of who Jesus really is. For the love of Pete … Well. That just may be a clue for the inside too.
Who’s Your Daddy?
Dear Christian, do you know your heavenly Daddy? Do you know He didn’t leave His firstborn, the Real Jesus, hanging on the tree or buried in the tomb? I guess I should apologize for this sounding so elementary, but this is a real dilemma for many when it comes to will the real Jesus please stand up? He already has. Now it’s our turn.
If you have made a true confession of faith, you are in Christ. If others you know have made a true confession of faith, they are in Christ. If still others you don’t know have made a true confession of faith, they are in Christ.
That means a whole lot of people besides one’s own tribal thinking are in Christ. You may be rubbing elbows with them – or the hand rubbing the elbow for that matter. For the love of your Daddy, you learn to love Pete.
I know a family that had 20 children, some biological and many adopted. Now that’s a big, diverse family with need for every member to have their own function while understanding they each belong to all the others. This is not hard to understand, dear Christian. It’s the marrying of our understanding and our will that is being dissected.
Not by me, but surely by Holy Spirit who dwells within every believer who is in Christ.
Dem Bones Will Live Again
The body of Christ is being assembled, healed, and built up even now as the dwelling place of God and His glory. He most certainly is the Great Physician. And I can attest to the fact that He is the medical examiner of assorted dry bones as well. By the time He has completed His delightfully difficult puzzle of a mature body of Christ, He will have it climbing off the autopsy table and standing up like the Army of God it is destined to be. So, I ask again –
Will the real Jesus please stand up? We need you in Christ, both outside and inside the tribes.
Verse 1
Toe bone connected to the foot bone
Foot bone connected to the heel bone
Heel bone connected to the ankle bone
Ankle bone connected to the shin bone
Shin bone connected to the knee bone
Knee bone connected to the thigh bone
Thigh bone connected to the hip bone
Hip bone connected to the back bone
Back bone connected to the shoulder bone
Shoulder bone connected to the neck bone
Neck bone connected to the head bone
Now hear the word of the Lord.
Chorus
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around.
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around.
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk around.
Now hear the word of the Lord.
~ Gracefully Free
Photo Credit: Tirachard Kumtanom from Pexels │©2019 Nancy Bentz │Wellspring of Life
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