“I Believe in the Holy Christian Church”

Revelation 21:10-14, 22-23

 An experienced church leader once commented, “I can only believe in the holy Christian Church.”  This man knew firsthand the up’s and down’s of church life.  He had seen congregations at their best and at their worst.  He lamented that sometimes the greatest obstacle in the way of faith in Jesus Christ is the church itself.  The history of the Church has not been a flawless one.  In Christ’s name, unholy wars have been fought, cruel inquisitions and witch hunts carried out, native peoples marginalized, and groups of believers bullied, deceived and even destroyed by their egotistical leaders.  Given its checkered past, it isn’t all surprising that social analysts have been predicting that the church, as an organized entity, is on the way out.   Certainly many people today count themselves Christians, but rarely attend a public worship service or involve themselves in the life of a congregation.  Is there hope for the Church?  Our reading from Revelation 21 assures us that the church of Jesus Christ will persist and grow for as long as this world exists.  More importantly though, the vision John saw and described gives us solid reason to believe in the holy, Christian Church, to be active members of it, and to look forward to its appearance in all the beauty and splendor witnessed by John.  The church Christ is building, the church that includes all believers in Him, is His beautiful bride, the new Jerusalem, His people living with Him and sharing His glory forever.

 Some time in the past you may have heard this little children’s saying and finger play: “Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people!”  It’s a cute rhyme, but it doesn’t express a very complete theology of the church.  Sadly though, it is a pretty accurate depiction of the prevailing popular view of the church in our world today.  For most, the church is a building and or a group of religious people.  If that is as far as we go in our understanding of the church, seeing it as nothing more than a human institution, we fall prey to two very dangerous misconceptions about life in the Christian Church. 

 If the Church is just the people in it, then it shouldn’t surprise us that many people aren’t too sure why they need to be part of it.  On the surface, we aren’t a particularly attractive bunch of people to be around.  The clean clothes we wear to worship each Sunday do little to hide the problems we have getting along with each other at home, at work and even here in the congregation.  The church is not a gathering of super humans or a group of highly evolved individuals.  We are sinners.  We make a mess of believing in God and obeying Him.  We are real amateurs when it comes to taking care of each other.  Unfortunately, we have trouble really admitting this to ourselves and to each other.  Often we pretend that we are happy, strong and forgiving, when we are really discouraged, weak and angry.  Outsiders to the church notice our acting quickly, concluding that they don’t want any part in such a hypocritical crowd.  It’s tragic because if we despise the church for its failings, we disqualify ourselves from ever catching a glimpse of her true glory.  It is a tragic error to reject the Church simply because it is filled with flawed people. 

 The other error that springs from seeing the church as nothing more than the people that fill its pew is this: a church that is only a human institution is a group that is ripe for manipulation and power struggles.  Sometimes the generations within congregations duke it out to see who will decide what a congregation’s worship and work will be like.  Pastors are often tempted to lobby and push the people of the parish to adopt their visions, molding them into their own image, while overlooking the pattern laid out in God’s Word.  Faithful lay leaders can become possessive about the work they do in the congregation, uncertain that anyone else can do it as well as they and unwilling to let them try.  The disciples of Jesus provide us with a number of humorous and instructive stories in the Gospels of times when they jockeyed for position and dreamed of making the kingdom of God their own pet project.  Those stories were written to help us examine our own attitudes towards life in the Church.  When we are guilty of seeing the Church as an entity to be used for our own purposes we need to heed the warning our Lord gave to His quarrelsome disciples: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3)  Little children don’t come into life knowing all the answers; they watch, listen and learn.  We don’t come into life knowing what the Church is either.  It is not a merely human institution.  If that were true, the Church would never have survived even her first century of life.  If we watch and listen to the content of John’s vision described for us in our second reading, God will teach us to rightly know the Church and to live in its faith and hope while we await the coming of its glory.

 What did John see?  John saw the church as it truly is, or as it will be after Jesus returns from heaven to judge the living and the dead.  He saw the church as the new Jerusalem, God’s holy city, coming down out of heaven.  The church is not built by people; it comes from God.  It was God who sent His Son to keep His law for disobedient people like us.  It was God who moved Jesus to offer His life as the sacrifice to atone for the sins of us all.  It was God who raised Jesus from the dead to declare humanity forgiven and call us to repent of our sins and believe in Him.  It was God who sent His Spirit to Jesus’ followers, igniting their faith in His Son and impelling them out into the world to make disciples of all kinds of people through preaching, teaching and baptizing.  Today it is still God who has made us part of His church.  God it is who calls us to quit following all kinds of selfish ambitions and priorities and to follow Jesus.  God is the One who enables us to follow our Lord, for through His Word and Sacraments, He continues to forgive our sins and encourage us to live as His children, His Church.  As one familiar hymn puts it, “She {the Church} is his new creation, by water and the Word.” (LW 289 “The Church’s One Foundation”) 

 The Church John saw was no mere collection of likeminded people, a social club or charitable organization.  John saw it as a great city with twelve gates, each one named after one of the twelve tribes of Israel.  The Church is the people of God whose roots reach back to Adam and Eve who received God’s first promise of a Savior, through Noah who believed God’s promise and was saved from the flood, to Abraham who followed God to a strange land because He had promised him children and a home.  The family of God’s people grew from Abraham through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob into a nation descended from the twelve sons of Jacob or Israel.  Among the people of Israel God continued through priests, prophets and kings to promise a Savior until He was born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, and went about Galilee, Samaria and Judea preaching the arrival of God’s saving rule.  Jesus chose twelve apostles whom He taught and prepared to be His messengers, carrying news of His death and resurrection to the world.  The message of the apostles is what we still hear and practice as we read, trust and obey the writings of the New Testament.  Apostolic teaching has called us together and forms as God’s people today; it is basic, and that is why the city John saw in his vision had twelve foundations, each one named after one of the apostles of the Lord. 

 In a vision John saw the wonders of that work of God called the Church.  He called it the New Jerusalem.  Jerusalem was Israel’s capital city, but more than that Jerusalem was God’s city, the place where the Temple was built, the place where God was present among His people to be worshipped.  God gave Jerusalem her grandeur and holiness, though her citizens were often so unbelieving and disobedient to Him.  John saw that God would not give up on His people; He would make Jerusalem brand, spanking, new, radiating with His divine glory.  This, John saw, was the Church’s great hope, her God-given destiny. 
How could this be?  How could people so ordinary looking here on earth become a glorious city, shining like the most precious jewels?  This is so because the true treasure and glory of the Church on earth is not found in the things that usually hold our attention: a well-appointed building, a pastor who is a good speaker, a program for youth that keeps them busy, or a selection of worship music that makes everyone happy.  The glory of the Church is that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the Lamb of God once slain on the cross, is alive and present among us.  He is risen, and He is with us!  Though Christ is hidden from our eyes, He speaks to us through His Word, He makes us part of God’s family with Him through Baptism, and He shares His sin-forgiving life with us in the Holy Supper, so that we may live for His glory.  We look forward with John to the day when our faith will be sight, and God’s glory will shine through us with no sinful obstructions or distortions.  There is more to the Church than a building, a steeple and some people.  There is God our Savior, who by His grace is making us holy and preparing us to live with Him eternally as His holy city, the New Jerusalem.

John’s vision encourages us to believe with all of our hearts in the holy Christian Church.  The glorious holy city is the embodiment of the promise Jesus made: “I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” (Matthew 16:18)  The vision moves us to confess as sin our failures to recognize the presence of Jesus among us while mistaking the Church for a merely human institution.  We have not been called to use our lives to build our own kingdoms but to humble ourselves like little children, asking God to help us to live by faith as citizens of His kingdom being built by His grace.  The same vision encourages us to confess with joy the truth of the saving work of Jesus in our lives.  He has brought us together.  He is our God and we are His people through faith in Jesus.  He forgives us for our sins through the gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection and His sacraments.  He fills us with faith and love that move us to gratefully keep His commandments, serving Him at home, at work and in His  Church.  He helps us through our trials, and like the high wall around Jerusalem, He protects us from evil and will carry us through death to our resurrection and eternal life. 

Viewed only from the outside, the Church looks like an institution that has long since seen its best days.  John’s vision reminds us that the Church can never be understood so superficially, for the best days of the Church have yet to be seen.  We are the Church – or at least part of it.  We are privileged to be God’s people, forgiven and saved by Christ.  Jesus, our Risen Lord, is with us.  By His Word and Sacraments, Jesus gives us strength to live as citizens of heaven even while we walk on this earth.  His Spirit gives us compassion for those who have not seen what we by faith see in the Church.  With His help we can show and tell others what the Church really is: “Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors, see all God’s people, and come on in because Jesus has made a place for you too!”  Amen.