ruggedly fragile

A good friend is currently in the intensive care section of a hospital.   Symptoms led to a serious diagnosis of cancer and surgery followed.  Then, more symptoms cropped up after surgery suggesting infection and a second surgery took place to ensure the first operation had not left something unfinished.  Our friend came through all of this turbulence within his body and is now sedated and his body is rallying in the recovery stage.  We paid a brief visit, despite his inability to communicate, and I was amazed at the number of tubes leading in...tubes leading out and electronic boxes with digital lights and displays that surrounded him.  He has a dedicated nurse watching and adjusting and tending all of these inputs and outputs and measurements and his condition is certainly serious but improving.  The thought I have is how complex and rugged our bodies are by design and function...but how fragile they can become when they are not whole and when one important part is not well.  All of the body systems that normally interact like a well conducted orchestra begin to sound more like the tune-up of the separate instruments and instead of providing a balance and synergy of function the failure of one area can lead to failure of other areas and the eventual shutdown of the entire body.  We are rugged, but we are also fragile.  That is true of our individual lives and it is true of our spiritual lives and our spiritual family, the church.  As a healthy church organism, we need to be interacting something like the nervous system and the digestive system and the respiratory system do in such a seamless way.  And when one part of our church body becomes ill we need intensive care to provide the care that permits a restoration of health.  The body of Christ is amazingly rugged, but it is also amazingly fragile and in need of every part working in a healthy way with the other parts.  Like the full time nurse caring for my friend, we are grateful for the full time presence of the Lord to tend and care for us and to restore us to healthy function.

1 Corinthians 12:¹² For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ....²⁶ And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.