As you got out of bed this morning, did you feel like you belonged to a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God? And tomorrow morning, as the daily grind begins again, will you be thinking as you brush the old ivories, "What ways am I going to declare God’s wonderful deeds today?" Will any of us plot how we might upset the devil, the prince of terrorists? How many of us will let the light of Christ shine through us and be among the darkness dispellers? Will any of us seek to be the light of Christ in a darkening world?

Reading the Bible, it becomes evident that Christianity is not a solo proposition. Christianity comes to us through Christian community. Without a relation to the community or church, our individual Christianity is weakened and incomplete. The church is Christ’s body on earth today. The light of Christ shines in the world through each of us as we take seriously that we are a chosen people belonging to God.

There is no disembodied Christianity. The Lord calls us to relate to him in the community of the church with all of its warts and imperfections. Christianity is a social faith, a community of fellow believers. Jesus continues to build his church upon our confession of faith that he was the one promised by the Father to die and pay the penalty of our sinfulness and to defeat death and the grave by rising again. No individual makes the church. Saint Paul speaks of members of the body of Christ; members mean absolutely nothing when they are severed from the body. Every functioning, contributing, participating member is important to the good of our witness.

Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of the church. We are each to be a living stone cemented to the cornerstone and to one another. Each of us has a divine destiny and a place in the drama of divine redemption. We have been baptized into a high vocation. We were once nobody’s people, destined to hell. We are now God’s people, called to serve the Lord, on our way to heaven. We have gone from rags to riches, from a pig sty to a royal palace.

We are God’s own people. We belong to God, saved from hell by the sacrifice of Christ. We are, therefore, called to produce - produce the light of Christ in our words and deeds. We are called by Christ to servanthood, to sacrifice, into ministry. Such ministry is fed and coordinated in the local parish. If each Christian took seriously the Lord’s Word, our ministry and effectiveness as darkness dispellers would double, perhaps even triple. With the help of God, let’s turn on our lights ... full strength.