This morning as I was getting ready for work the news was filled with images of Pope Benedict XVI’s final day on the job. In fact, there was quite a bit of video of him flying in a helicopter to the private castle retreat where he’ll be spending the next two months before returning to his retirement home in the Vatican. Tonight he will officially be the former pope and the Catholic church will be without a head.
Wait a minute…a church without a head? A headless body? How is that possible? When a body loses its head does that not mean that it is effectively dead?
Days like today make me especially thankful to be a New Testament Christian. It is invaluable to live in the assurance that the church of the Bible has a Head who will never abdicate His throne. Jesus is the eternal Head of the eternal church (Ephesians 1:22,23). A living Head makes for a living body. And a living Head of a living body can offer life to all those who are a part of it (Ephesians 5:23).
Today is a marvelous lesson about Catholicism that I desperately wish 1.2 billion Catholics would quickly learn. Without a head they are dead, because there is no life in a headless body.
-Andy Brewer