So, Where Exactly Is The Church Headed?

"The church is going to hell in a handbasket." That's what he said some three or more decades ago, right here in our Juneau home town. No atheist he, no agnostic, no sloppy liberal religionist, no militant weird faith follower; rather, a dyed-in-the-wool Bible believer, a Bible thumper indeed, by some reckoning. (Well, could be a weird faith follower, I suppose.)

His point ... maybe ... that certain practices he deplored in churchly affairs were bringing it to utter, certain, and quick ruination. Still, it seems such a curious turn of phrase, doesn't it?

Curious, especially when the reported words on its founder's lips had been, "I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." So odd to assert the community that Jesus, its founder, promised to save from hell was itself the very entity that nonetheless was bound for it. So to speak.

I guess we like to speak in hyperbole. Or at any rate we like to exaggerate so as to emphasize the passion felt about the topic at hand. So, we're really talking about the depth of feeling and not really about the outcome of the subject matter itself. Even so, we suspect both the extent of emotion and risked outcome hold inexorable links.

And then.

Another saying has these words from Jesus, "I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent" - the metaphorical lampstand to be the church, and its metaphorical place to shine victoriously in the presence of the Risen Christ. This does sound somewhat sobering, not quite the church militant let alone triumphant, instead, potentially doomed.

Repentance conditions Jesus' removal of the church from his presence in the heavens to the abyss. It seems Jesus expects the community called by his name to reflect something of his character. And if it does not, then it stands to lose his endorsement. It may be a church, but not his.

So Jesus calls for repentance, that is, for a change of mind, heart, and action. And to repent toward what end? He expects his people to love and do acts of love.

And in this love the church triumphs: God raised the Lord Jesus; and God, by his power alone, will also raise the church with Jesus and bring the whole into his glorious presence.