Monday 18 October 2010

Shelter

Another song today, about church and what church is and can be.

Shelter - Jars of Clay

To all who are looking down
Holding onto hearts still wounding
For those who've yet to find it
The places near where love is moving
Cast off the robes you're wearing
Set aside the names you've been given

May this place of rest in the fold of your journey
Bind you to hope, you will never walk alone.

In the shelter of each other, we will live, we will live
In the shelter of each other, we will live, we will live
Your arms are all around us

If our hearts have turned to stone
There is hope, we know the rocks will cry out
And the tears aren't ours alone
Let them fall into the hands that hold us
Come away from where you're hiding
Set aside the lies you've been living

May this place of rest in the fold of your journey
Bind you to hope that we will never walk alone

If there is any peace, if there is any hope
We must all believe, our lives are not our own

We all belong
God has given us each other
And we will never walk alone

I particularly love the lines,
"May this place of rest in the fold of your journey
Bind you to hope that we will never walk alone"
And the way it expresses the idea of "the body of Christ" in a new way.

While it is true that we each have Jesus with us every single hour of every single day of our lives, sometimes we need to be His hands and feet, His tangible body here on earth, for one another and accepting that help from one another as each has need. It's why the writer of Hebrews exhorts us, "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10.25 NIV), because we need to support one another while we are here. Likewise it is why in his book Where is God When Life Hurts? Philip Yancey concludes that the question we should really ask is "Where is the church when life hurts?". The body of Christ is such a fabulous idea, a refuge from an often hostile world, a place where everyone counts and belongs, where Jesus is the life and the Spirit and the pumping heart and creator and the centre, where restoration, love, hope, forgiveness and grace can flourish and flood out into the world. I pray that my membership doesn't impede the work of Jesus in His body and that despite being so broken myself I can be shelter for others, as they shelter me.

"The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms" Deuteronomy 33.27

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13.34-5

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