LENT DAY 9: United As One

 

Day 9 Friday - Mar 3, 2023; Feb 23, 2024; Mar 14, 2025

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? -1 Corinthians 1:13

Occasionally in sports, tempers flare among competitors and benches clear as two teams seem ready to compete gladiator style instead of the sport they inteded when they first took the field. Usually when this happens, it’s clear who is fighting for which side, as conflicts typically happen along the same lines as the different uniforms worn. Every once in a while, however, there is a conflict not between two teams but two guys on the same team start going at it. That’s where things get uncomfortable and ugly, and we the fans especially want to know the gory details as to what could have set off such a skirmish. The players are, after all, on the same team. What could make teammates fight? If it's bad enough watching athletes going at it like pro wrestlers, it's really bad when they are supposed to be working together.

Paul raises this problem when he starts to see the divisions rising in the congregation in Corinth. To be divided was to divide Christ. And nothing was more an affront to this than to be divided along the lines of baptism. Baptism, after all, is like our uniform. We heard at the beginning of the week that our baptismal garment is Christ (Galatians 3:27). That means baptism gives us all the same uniform and declares we’re all playing for the same team.

In Ephesians, Paul says there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” just as there is “one God and Father of all” (Ephesians 4:5-6). Baptism should be the single most universal sign within the church of our fellow brethren. Anyone baptized is kin to you!

And that should change how we care for one another, stick up for one another, and just how ridiculous it is when we quarrel with one another. After all, we’re all playing on the same team. Yet in the church we are infamous for petty quarrels. That's when we need someone to take us back to our baptism. It shows our common bond and proclaims our unity by God's doing.

Show me the face of your Son on every baptized person. Heal the broken wounds in your Church, that Christ would not appear divided. Let me see the church through the eyes of baptism - mine and that of all my church siblings. Amen.

This post is a part of my daily Lenten devotional on Baptism. You can read more about it here.