E. Stanly Jones, in his book "Victory through Surrender" tells a great little story. There is a boy in India who while riding his "bicycle is confronted with a broken chain. He had no other means to tie it together again except with his Brahmin sacred cord which he wore under his garments. Without hesitation he used the cord to tie together the broken chain. When he finished the repair, he said to himself, there, this sacred cord has at last done me some good."
The lesson is that unless the sacred gets mingled in with the secular it is really serving no purpose. I wonder about this when I ponder the state of the Christian Church. How often do we go into the doors of our sanctuaries, only to close them behind, leaving the world behind, only to emerge one hour later ready to enter into the world, all the while our "sacred cord" hidden in our garments unused in the world where the chain is certainly broken?
I am reminded of Jesus warning to the disciples. You should be in the world but not of the world. Today that seems too hard for the average Christian, so we just opt to stay out of the world altogether or worse yet, to join it with no concern for the sacredness of our connection to Jesus.
Where do you stand? Is the sacred cord, the scarlet thread of Christ something to be hidden under your garment, like the candle that Jesus says should not be hidden under a bushel? Or are you ready to take the sacred into the world and make disciples among the people who are unconnected from Jesus? It’s your call!
