As I drove home tonight, I passed a church, as I often do, that had one of those tacky one-liner supposed-to-be-catchy phrases on the sign. You know to reel in the souls of the random passer-by. This one said, and I quote, “It is never to late.” I wondered to myself, as I continued on my merry way, who, then, it is to?

Who, or what, is the Church? I hope to not so much definitively answer the question, as much as to address it. There is, among modern Christians a tendency to ignore the idea of the Church. Church is a place to go to see other Christians. To see the Church as an “entity” is to the modern evangelical mind something very Roman Catholic. But the Church is an entity. The Bible tells me so. And she will prevail against the gates of hell.

The first question in what, or who, is the Church is, what, or who, are Christians? There is a simple answer to this, and it is not about a personal relationship. Christians are those who have received a baptism in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Some might say Christians are those who have a good relationship with, or really love Jesus. But that is too ambiguous and subjective. Others say that Christians are the elect. I’m a little more comfortable with this, but again, how can you know? You can’t. But I can answer both of those with baptism. If you are elect, you will love Jesus and want to have a good relationship with Him. If you love Him, you will keep His commandments. One of which is, be baptized.  But what if someone is neither elect, nor loves Jesus, but is baptized? Then he is one of the seeds that took root, but not deeply, and died, or was choked by weeds. God will root him out, either through the normal activities of the faithful Church, or on Judgement Day. But, if someone is baptized and in good standing with the church, I have no choice but to treat him as a brother, encouraging him in love.

So the Church, perhaps, is a collection of baptized Christians. But that can’t be all, because when I have my Christian buddies over, we are not the church. We are members of the church, meeting outside the church. The church is, as Paul tells us, the body of Christ. We, being baptized Christians, are members of that body. Like little fingers and pinky toes. The church extends in time both ways. It is both historical and teleological. But while all Christians are part of the historical church, and we pray for the future church, we are in the present church. The messy one with real people. Being members of a body naturally means having a hierarchy. The pinky toes are not in charge. They are in submission. It is through this submission that we learn to lead, which is to say, to serve. Essentially, the simple answer is that Christians are covenantally bound to the God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and to one another. There is a lot tied up with that; fellowship, accountability, putting up with strange people, compromising opinions that are held as beliefs, dealing with other people, obeying elders, making vows and keeping them, loving one another.  

So, the church is, through time, a group of people, repentant, believing, and covenantally bound by baptism to God and one another, submitting to the hierarchy of authority put in place by God, and extending the hand of fellowship to those who would repent, believe, and be baptized. The church, as the body of Christ, teaches us, feeds us, and gives us rest. It is not possible, where the church is present, to be bound to Christ, and to be at odds with His body, the church.

I don’t know if it was Spring just itching in peoples bones, or if someone was passing out free psychotropics down the street, but something was just a little off kilter downtown today as I got off work.

The first sign was the clueless panhandler. His first mistake was that he started with the finishing line. As he first walked by, sporting nice pants, a designer-esque shirt, and a cute dog on a leash, he flashed me a yellow toothed smile and wished God’s blessing on me. All good beggars know to save the blessing until later in the game. Then he told me about how cold it was last night for his dog, (who had not lost her winter coat, or winter’s reserve of blubber). I really did feel sorry for the guy. I was about ready to give him panhandling lessons.

I had only barely gotten rid of him when I heard singing down the street, and coming closer. I looked and there before my eyes is a thin, middle aged man sporting salt and pepper hair, a classic olive suit, latex gloves, and a school-bus-yellow hard hat, swerving down the entire width of the road on a mountain bike.  As he went he circled a group of jay-walking college kids, sing-songing, “My bike is cheaper than your bike! My bike is cheaper than your bike!” Baffled, I continued loading my tools.

Eventually a couple of my coworkers came out, and we began conversing. I pointed out the ecstatic bicyclist who was making mad circles around the square. As we laughed this up, an odd couple, he looking very much like a monkey, and she possibly carrying all her worldly possessions in a backpack, stopped to question us on the nature of the construction project ($1495 a month loft apartments). After hearing a goodly portion of her life story, they left us. No sooner, a new couple walked by, whose timing could not have been written better by a Hollywood screenwriter.

They were an elderly couple. She was pushing him, he having neither leg below the thigh. It could have been a touching picture. But just as they rolled by, we got a snapshot of their conversation.  We had to go back inside after that, unable to contain our gleeful reaction to the effects of what undoubtedly must have been the weather.

He spoke reminiscently. “I one-time peed on the steps of a library.”

“Oh, God, Leroy,” she sighed. “Sweet Jesus.”

Afraid the general atmosphere might be catching, we retreated.

My soul is swelling right now. I really can only find one word to describe it: Joy. As I sit I am listing to Joe Purdy, waiting for the waffles to rise, hearing Nathan’s happy noises as Natalie reads him nursery rhymes, and looking at the wonderful Valentines day gift my darling wife gave me. It is very simple, like most joys. A thin black poster frame, filled with nearly a dozen photos from our honeymoon. The photos are from a disposable camera we got while in North Carolina that I have been meaning to get developed for the last year and a half. Unbeknownst to me, Natalie had them devoloped and then arrenged them tastefully in this frame.

The pictures capture the happiness of that time, the joy of the memories. It especially rings true this morning as we enjoy the continued joy, a joy that has matured over time, and will continue to mature. These memories are powerful mostly because of the reality of the present, and the hope of the future. It is this trajectory that makes memories worth making. The past, the present, and the future are dependent on one another in a sort of way that seems to reflect the Trinity.  They are all dependant on each other. Any over-emphasis of one distorts the others. Memories are made for maturing, they seem to look forward, while the future must keep them in mind to keep going forward. All of this connects in the ever-constant present. Sometimes all three connect powerfully, in hope, love, and joy. And Joe Purdy.

Nathan is constantly amazing me. It hasn’t been long since he was completely immobile. Now he crawls quickly across the floor, stopping periodically to clap his hands and cough, “haqck, haqck”. (The ‘q’ is of course there to imply the gutteral quality.) There is, of course, nothing wrong the silly fellow. He just knows, inately, that noise is the way to get attention. Right now he says, “haqck”. In a couple months he will say, “momma” and “daddy”. Though he won’t know why we are excited and giving him attention, he will know that we are. There is a progression there.

I’m sure it is much the same with most boys.  First you have gutteral noises, and then words, and then back and forth for different periods of time. Boys make no random noises. They are all calcualated to achieve maximum attention. Eventually the noises get strung together, as sentances are found to more affective, if not repulsive (repulsion is one of the highest forms of attention giving). But still, boys always fight the temptation to growl, roar, or walk into a room and blurt out the biggest word they know. “Anti-oxidant!”

I myself am subject to the same urges and instincts.  Why, only yesterday I was standing around, with no one to listening to me, and I had to fight the urge to just scream, “Super-lapsarianism!”

Who knew? In other news, the I am Legend story comes to life in Austin…

As we go into the new year, there are many uncertainies. But one thing is certain. The Lord God Omnipotent reigns heaven and earth. He is taking all things under His dominion, until His enemies are made His footstool. It will be a good year.

I don’t write enough. When I do sit down to write I have all these ideas running around through my head, bursting to get out at the same time.  In order to keep peace between them I usually end up not letting any of them out. But I need to let some of them out. So here you go. This one I got the idea from my wife (she said I could write about it if she didn’t, and I gave her nearly a week):

Have you ever wondered about the fact that mangers in the general Bethlehem area, circa 3-4 AD, were perfectly baby crib sized? Read the rest of this entry »