Midweek: Abandonment

Once again, I'm not sure I want to get into the habit of posting three times a week (I tend to be a little busy these days), but I'm compelled to share this with you. It's a theme that continues to resonate in my personal time with Jesus these days. In the words of John Donne, "No man is an island." I've been reading about the differences between collective societies --cultures who function as a unit with little or no acquiescence to the goals, desires, and preferences of the individual --and individualistic societies such as our in the Western world. We encourage individuals to pursue their own dreams, to be all they as individuals can be, to stand up for themselves, to leave the nest and build your own which your children will one day leave. Knowing the "family of God" encompasses so many ethnicities and varied cultures, is the body of Christ a collective society, or an individualist one? If it is both, how is this dichotomy sustained? And if it is both, what does that mean in terms of my sin and the rest of the body?

Honestly, I'm not planning to answer those questions here, but I encourage you to do some research on your own. What I do know is that we were made for and called to relationship; first, a relationship with our Creator, and then, a relationship with those around us. Because of this, when I meditated this week on the account of the crucifixion, the thing that stood out most to me is the abandonment Jesus suffered. All throughout His ministry, Jesus surrounded Himself with twelve close friends and many other faithful followers; He spoke before multitudes of people; He was a member of the Jewish nation of Israel on earth and a member of the Divine Trinity. He was clearly a part of a body but died alone. I have no context for enduring the beating that Jesus endured; I cannot even begin to empathize with that sort of physical suffering. But I know abandonment. My father was in large part physically absent from our home, in greater part emotionally absent. From childhood, I was taught academics and church were admirable, sports and whatever other types of "distractions" I pursued made me a disappointment to him. When he received accolades regarding his beautiful family, my father hugged us warmly; when we argued or rebelled, he fell silent and withdrew in every way possible. The "love" we received was directly proportional to the opinions of those watching. Abandonment, or the fear of abandonment remained with me long after I left my parents' home, long after my father left this earth. Abandonment is something I can grasp, something that --even in thinking of it today --prompts a visceral reaction, something that --as I think of Jesus' lonely cry from the cross --I can identify with. My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Leaving me here to protect myself, to figure it all out, to endure alone, to bear the weight, to die.

Jesus suffered abandonment for me. His friends ran from the garden when the guards showed up. The one who stayed was the one who betrayed Him. On the cross, His Father turned His back on Him; so vile with sin was Jesus, the Father could not look on His only begotten Son. Our sin. My sin. Ephesians 1:7 says, In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. Admittedly, I never gave that word "we" much thought before. But as I read it with new eyes this morning, I thought about the collective. Truly no sin is victimless. No one can say the battle with pornography or shopping is "private." We may tell ourselves no one knows or no one will be hurt, but there are victims. Jesus, abandoned by His own Father, to atone for sins committed, to restore a relationship violated in every way possible before God's grace intervened and rescued, Jesus Christ whose name every follower now bears --Jesus is the ultimate victim of sin. He suffered pain unto death, He suffered abandonment for sin. My sin. Our sin. 

The body of Christ, my fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord are victims of my sin just as I am victims of theirs. When we, as members of this divine family, sin, we sin against one another. The reputation of the body is at stake, the prayers and encouragement of my brothers and sisters are mocked, and a breach occurs which makes the collective susceptible to the wasting disease of sin. The continuity of the ministry, the cohesiveness of the body, the welfare of the collective are impacted by the sin of the individual. My sin becomes our sin. The body is left without a fully functioning, healthy and whole in Christ member until the sin is dealt with and relationship is restored: the strain that is put on the back when suffering a bum knee, the immune system weakened by poor dietary choices. Crimes against one another; abandonment of purpose, of commitment, of the collective.

As we approach the next couple of days, meditating on the great suffering our Lord endured, meditating on the tremendous betrayal of men and the ultimate selflessness of God, let us bear in mind the abandonment Jesus experienced for our sakes and the abandonment those sins we commit even today inflict upon the body of Christ. Our sin has consequences, consequences that are not solely our own, consequences that are not as hidden as the alcohol at the bottom of our bedroom closet or as "innocent" as the hours we spend scrolling social media, consequences that affect the collective. My sin is not my own. I abandon the body with each commission, I shirk my responsibilities, I become less of what God has designed me to be, I call into question the reputation of Jesus Christ and His followers. Praise God, in Christ we have redemption --as individuals and as a collective, His body. Let us uphold through obedience the work of the cross, not forsaking the good of the body and abandoning those who stand with us before the throne.