Focus Text: I Corinthians 12:3-13

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.  For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Pastoral Reflection by Rev. Bill McElveen, Pastor of Visitation, Trinity Moravian Church, Winston-Salem

On the night before he died, in what is now known as his “High Priestly Prayer” recorded in John 17, Jesus prayed: “…that they may all be one: even as thou, Father, art in me and I in Thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that Thou has sent me.”

It seems to be a prayer that we who love Jesus may be at one with him and with the Father and that, somehow, the world’s believing in him depends on our witness to him in unity.  That is to say, if his followers are splintered into many varying and conflicting entities, the witness that could draw people to him is greatly diminished.  This is not an accident – this is crucial to Jesus!