They have lost connection with the head …
Summary: History has many lessons for us. One of those lessons has to do with staying connected to your head, especially the one that you can’t see.
I’ve just finished reading a book on the history of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.*
The last part of the story is about the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth that took place after Lincoln was shot. At the end of the hunt, Booth was caught hiding in a barn in Virginia. The soldiers that had hunted him down had surrounded the barn, and since Booth was shut inside and refused to surrender, they lit the barn on fire.
With flames crackling outside the building and smoke filling the inside, the door to the barn is opened, and Lieutenant Baker peers inside. Booth rises to aim his gun at the lieutenant, but before he can fire, Sergeant Corbett shoots a bullet into Booth’s neck.
The bullet that hits Booth severs his spinal cord just above the shoulder. Booth’s body immediately loses its connection with the head. He falls to the ground. Two hours later, he is dead.
Cutting the connection with the head is like cutting the strings on a puppet. The body might remain alive for a while, but the head can no longer communicate with it.
Is the Body of Christ similar?
As humans, we tend to find this question confusing. We are, after all, physical bodies. The idea of a “Body of Christ” doesn’t seem real. It sounds like a nice metaphor for trusting in Jesus, but for many, it doesn’t feel like a real thing.
When I think of the Body of Christ, my mind is drawn back to Genesis and the Garden of Eden. God tells Adam not to eat from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:16-17), because if you do, you will die.
The serpent, ever the deceiver, tells Eve, “You will not certainly die” (Genesis 3:4). He directly contradicts God. In fact, if we read the rest of the story, we discover that at the end of the chapter, Adam and Eve are still alive. Even after eating the forbidden fruit!
So what gives?
It turns out that there are two kinds of death. The obvious kind of death is what happened to Lincoln and Booth. In both cases, the body stopped working. But what about their spiritual selves?
President Lincoln was a man of deep faith. From what we know of his life, he was truly “born again” (John 3:3). The spirit of President Lincoln was connected to the head of the Body of Christ. Even though he was the president of a divided country, his words and deeds reflect the will of his God.
John Wilkes Booth, on the other hand, does not appear to be spiritually connected to the Lord Jesus. His spirit, too, survived the shot that severed his neck and ended his body’s life. Is it likely he is enjoying heaven, or more likely he is with the rich man who ended up in the lake of fire? (Luke 16: 19-31)
Application: Stay connected with the head, Jesus Christ.
Food for Thought: How do we know if we are connected to the head, Jesus Christ?
*O’Reilly, Bill. Killing Lincoln : the Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever. New York :Henry Holt and Co., 2011.
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If the body is connected to the head, it will obey the head’s commands. If we are connected to Christ as Lord, we will do what he tells us. Similarly, a body that is connected will grow and mature. So will we if we are truly connected to Him. Salvation depends on faith alone by grace alone in Christ alone. To follow Him as Lord takes obedience and a maturing process.
Ephesians 4: 11 – 16: So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
John 15: 1 – 8: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes a so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Luke 6: 46: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?
John 14: 23 – 24: Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.