The Inner Ring

"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many." ~I Corinthians 12:12-14

I found this reading to be quite interesting. C.S. Lewis deals here with something that I think every student that goes through high school has had no choice but to deal with; the existence of the "inner ring," or perhaps you could describe it as a clique. In the essay, Lewis describes the existence of the inner ring, but then he goes on to show how everyone gets absorbed in being part of the "know" to the point where it can drive a person away from friends they already have. "I believe that in all men's lives at certain periods, and in many men's lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside."  In my group in class we paralleled this with high school as I mentioned above. There are groups such as the popular kids, the jocks, the nerds, etc. Every kid wants to be a part of one of these rings, and if one person has the opportunity to move up to a more respectable or "popular" ring they often ditch their old friends in a heartbeat. Thus the existence of high school drama.

As I was thinking about this I paralleled this idea with the first sin. Satan says to Eve in Genesis 3: 4b,5 "Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Satan was tempting man with the same sin which he had fallen to, namely, to be a god. In essence, the sin of the Devil and the sin of man was, out of pride, to be equal to God, or perhaps it could be restated as, to be in God's inner ring. This is a great sin, and I think it has been replicated over and over again throughout history by men in competition with other men to be the greatest, to rise up the ranks until you are at the most "inner" of all the rings.

Yet in contrast to this, we have the great Good of our Lord Jesus Christ who did quite the opposite to advancing himself. Rather, we have Him emptying himself, making Himself the most poor of men who ever lived, and this in contrast to the eternal riches He has as God! Lewis says that "the quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it." I think it would be more scriptural as well as more comforting to state it this way: The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts, but Christ has given us a new one that is filled with His Spirit!

So, because of Jesus' sacrifice, we are by His grace in His inner ring, namely, the church. And this inner ring constitutes a multitude of believers who all have the common interest of submitting to and praising our Lord who saved us from the treachery of our own pride!