Brushstrokes

My wife, Cindy, is an artist. I am not. I’m colorblind, and I can’t even write my name legibly, but I have learned a lot from watching her create.

Beginning with a vision, a plan, and a prepared blank canvas, she chooses colors, picks up brushes and begins to paint. At first it makes no sense. Brushstrokes of various lengths and thicknesses go every whichway and colors are all mixed up together. Then an image emerges out of the chaos—a barn, a sheep, a tree, or a landscape. You see what happened? The brushstrokes and colors reveal their true quality and identity when brought together; like a spice, when mixed with other spices, reveals its true flavor.  

For Christians, this strange time of isolation and distance is particularly difficult because we are called to be “members one of another.” The Apostle Paul writes: “So we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom. 12:5). “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another” (Eph. 4:25). “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Cor. 12:12).   

The word “members” (melos) doesn’t mean “elite” or “VIP.” It doesn’t refer to a “unit” or “replaceable spare part.” It means “organ” or “limb.” When a member is removed, cut off, or absent, the rest of the body is damaged. Ever notice that when someone of any group that is meaningful to you (a family member, friend, teammate, etc.) passes away or moves, you don’t have more of the other members, you have less? He was one-of-a-kind, and his presence and personality made unique contributions to the personality of the group. Again, Paul: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you'” (1 Cor. 12:21). “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Cor. 12:26).

Two common attitudes undermine this profound truth. First, “I love Jesus but not the church.” This mentality excuses itself by putting the church, so to speak, on trial: “The church is full of hypocrites.” “Nobody talked to me.” “The service times are inconvenient.” On and on. Second, “I love Jesus and the church, and I look forward to the day when everybody thinks like me.” In other words, when more people like my kind of music, preaching, youth ministry, flowers, donuts, on and on, this place will really be great!

A specific challenge: On Sunday we serve. See Sunday, the Lord’s Day, as a day to die to yourself. Honestly, as a pastor, this has changed my life. I’ve had so many selfish and unrealistic expectations of myself and the churches I’ve served through the years because I ignored the great gift that we are all brushstrokes—a vast variety of colors, sizes, shapes, and images!

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his classic little book, Life Together, reminds us:

It is easily forgotten that the fellowship of Christian brothers is a gift of grace, a gift of the Kingdom of God that any day may be taken from us.

Therefore let him who until now has had the privilege of living the common Christian life with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brothers. 

The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer. How inexhaustible are the riches that open up for those who by God’s will are privileged to live in the daily fellowship of life with other Christians!

We are the brushstrokes of THE CREATOR, and when we look closely at the canvas we see that the image that emerges is Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Lord, our example.