Body-Building Christians

Series Title: Growing Up into Christ 
This series is produced on behalf of the ELS Board for Youth Outreach. The aim of the series is to invest in the youth of the ELS by building up the households and parents of those youth in the “unity of the faith” (Ephesians 4:13). While there are many cultural chasms between adults and adolescents, the body of Christ (the Church) provides us one marvelous location where post-pubescent teens and parents are meant to be together: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5)—in short, together Growing Up into Christ.
 
I distinctly remember my uncle’s weight set from my early childhood. I would watch him “pump iron” and wonder when I would be grown up enough to participate in such manly activity. At my young age, I could pretend, but I wanted the real thing!
A few years later, in my early teens, it was still being debated whether or not it was good for teenagers to aggressively lift weights while the body was very actively growing. As soon as I got to high school, our athletic teams went “all-in” with the weightlifting. We were given a regimen by which we were to become bigger, faster, and stronger—supremely equipped for competition. It made my muscles sore and my pride even more sore (I was very weak compared to my peers). The weightlifting regimen was breaking down my body and my pride, but this breaking down of body and soul was, in a mysterious way, also building me up.
Jesus has given a soul-building regimen to His Church as well, the Holy Ministry—the delivery of His gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation to His redeemed people. By this regimen, the Holy Ministry, Christ says, He builds up His body—you—His Church (Ephesians 4:11–12). By breaking down our sinful flesh and pride, the ministry of the Word then builds the Christian into Christ. The Holy Ministry of Christ’s Word builds you into “Christ’s body.”
During exercise, shockwaves fire through nerves to little pads fixed to the skin upon a certain muscle or muscle group. You may sit still in your La-Z-Boy, but you are bodybuilding—or rather, your body is being built! Too good to be true? Perhaps for physiology, but not for theology. Christ’s soul-building regimen for the Church is His saving Word and Sacraments applied by means of His Holy Ministry.
The modern church, like the culture in which I grew up, has often questioned whether or not this soul-building regimen is good for young children or even young adults. Won’t the same old confessing and absolving, preaching and communing just stunt their growth (make them stop coming)? Isn’t this liturgy business meant for middle-aged adults and white-haired eighty-somethings? Not at all. This regimen of preaching and liturgy is Christ applying His Holy Word to otherwise unholy people. This regimen is for “equipping the saints”—all of them—those who are washed by the blood of the Lamb and dressed in the white robe of His righteousness.
What a masterful soul-building regimen this is! One size fits all because the 6-day-old, the 16-year-old, and the 96-year-old are all called to “do” the same thing: be still and receive the exercise of Christ’s Ministry, His Means of Grace. One body (the Holy Christian Church), made up of people of every age and ability, is being built into Christ’s body. That is God’s Holy Ministry. That is Christ “soul-building” Christians.
Kyle Madson is co-pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Frankenmuth, Michigan.