Underside

It was an interesting weekend, to say the least, but lots of stuff started bubbling up within me, telling me it was time to start blogging again. So, here I go...

On Saturday night, we attending the Portage High School's production of "The Crucible," a play by Arthur Miller. "The Crucible" was written in the midst of the McCarthy communist hearings in the 1950's, and though it's technically about the Salem Witch Trials (fictionalized, of course), I found myself thinking about many different situations where good, religious people (myself included) have found themselves slightly off course due to fear or misunderstanding or any number of other reasons. Talk to a not-yet-Christian today and you'll often hear people saying the church is just about intolerance...and you might even hear them mention the Crusades, the Inquisition or even the Salem Witch Trials to back up their case. Isn't it interesting that we who claim to follow the one who called us all to love so often fail to do just that...love.

On Sunday morning, I found myself in the choir loft at the first service because I wasn't preaching this week. At one point in the service, as we were singing a song of praise, I looked over toward the cross, but because of where I was sitting, I couldn't see it. From the angle I was at, I could only see the underside of the church...the wires that suspend and power our screen, the fake flowers we use at various times of the year (hidden away "backstage"), old hymnals, and yes even the cobwebs that are way up high so no one can reach them. I couldn't see the cross, despite wanting to so desperately.

And suddenly I thought of the play the night before. Though there were crosses evident in the story, what wasn't evident or what couldn't be seen was the real cross—or the real meaning of the cross. Self-giving, self-sacrificial love. Giving without expectation of repayment. A Christ who loves us—each and every one of us—so much that he would rather die than live without us. In times when we, the church, have failed, it's because people haven't been able to see the cross. Oh, they may have seen a physical cross prominent in our churches, but they weren't able to see the true cross, or the true meaning of the cross. They couldn't see the love of the cross working itself out in the world. Love—real love, self-giving love—would have changed the story in Salem. But too often, when outsiders look toward us to see that, all they see is the underside of life, the underside of the church.

Of course, we can't change the past. We can only work on the present. The question for us is this: when people look to us to see love, what do they see? Do they see only cobwebs? Or do they get a glimpse of Jesus?