The Bible makes our belonging clear. We belong to God. He made us! We belong to Jesus; he redeemed us and bought us back! We belong to the Family of God, the Church. This also means we belong to each other. That truth must affect the way we live together. That’s why Paul exhorts the Ephesians to “tell each other the truth because we all belong to each other in the same body.” You belong to me. I need you! I belong to you. You need me!
I remember that during the night of the first Passover, each family was to take one lamb into their house and then they were to share it at a meal together, one lamb per family. When John the Baptist appeared on the scene at the opening of a brand new era, he pointed at Jesus and explained that Jesus was the one lamb, the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. The Passover sacrificial lamb was all pointing directly toward the one “lamb of God.” There’s a great communal truth found in the Passover lamb. Out of Egypt, that is, out of the world, God called a people for His very own. They were to become a new family, a new nation, a new kingdom of priests. They were no longer slaves but set free! They now “belonged” to each other in a very special way as they shared the “one lamb” for the entire family. I’d argue that Christians belong to each other more than they belong to their nation. They belong to each other more than they belong to a sports team. They belong to each other more than they belong to their race. They belong to each other more than they belong to the human race as a whole. There is a kingdom within a kingdom, so to speak. We are a new people in an old world. We are a new family called out of a kingdom in slavery to sin. We are a new “construction” in which each part is totally dependent on the other parts. You see, there is only one lamb for the whole family, the Lord Christ Jesus. In Ephesians 2:19-22, we read, “You are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto! He really wasn’t the “Lone” Ranger at all, was he? At best, he was the “Almost Lone Ranger.” But even then, in every episode, he was helping out others and serving the cause of justice. I’m sure he knew that a campfire is a lonely place if you have no one to share it with. God made us to depend on each other, and to need each other. From the very beginning, he said, “It’s not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). David Jeremiah wrote, “Loneliness is a warning light on an inner gauge that confirms we’re running short on a primary fuel we require to run efficiently.” We need each other in the same way we need food, water, air, and shelter. I read a Calvin and Hobbs cartoon recently where Calvin was telling Hobbs that he doesn’t like people. He just wants to be alone. Hobbs looks out at a beautiful view of the mountain and woods and says, “Yeah, but it’s so much nicer to look at this with somebody.” Calvin concedes.