Little Christs

Exodus 5

Years ago I trained under a chaplain in a large hospital. The main process was to see some patients and then sit and write “verbatims” of the visits that the chaplain would then review, rigorously, with me. I remember one man who, without any prompting from me on the subject, kept repeating over and over that he couldn’t find God at all in his misery. And the chaplain/supervisor told me, “You have to be Christ for him.” I was shocked at this. But then, isn’t that what “Christian” means – “little Christs”?

After all the promise and assurances, things just were getting more miserable all the time for the Israelites. They didn’t just not find God; they blamed him. Or actually, they blamed Moses and Aaron, who in turn blamed God. Moses and Aaron were the closest thing to God at hand that they could blame. And sometimes being “little Christs” means we take on ourselves the anger others might have with the God they say they can’t find. Being God’s representative means you allow people to give expression to the God they otherwise just say isn’t there.

Just enlarge that a bit and you have the church as the Body of Christ in a world of people who deny or ignore God in Christ as a personal being for them (most people say there is a God). Stop what you’re doing and pray over the implications of that for church folks.

Meanwhile back in Egypt, the chapter ends bleakly. There is a response from God to begin the next chapter. Some editors make no paragraph break between chapters 5 and 6 to move right on to the Lord’s response. But I think we’ll stop here and wait for the response, just because that so often is our real experience: No answer to our questions or cries for a long time. But we do have one another as “little Christs.”

Prayer:
God, let me be Christ for someone today. In Him. Amen.