What is the Church
Revelation 21. 1-4 and 9-14
I want to explore the question, “What is the Church?” and when I found out that Chris had preached on Ephesians 2 about being the Church, I thought “Good!” But I also thought “there goes my text for Sunday!” Then the Lord gave me this text from Revelation 21. 2: “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” So we are are starting at the end of the story and working backwards, today.
John goes on to tell how one of the “Seven angels with the seven bowls” says to him, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ and what he sees is the Holy City.
This New Jerusalem, this Heavenly Bride, can be one thing and one thing only – the gloriously perfected Church, the people of God. It is you and it is me! At the end of time, at the end of everything, when God makes a new Heaven and a new earth, there will be the Church, glorious and splendid, coming down from Heaven. Heaven and earth pass away and a new heaven and earth are created. But the Church, the New Jerusalem, is already there waiting to come down from heaven. The Church is real for eternity. That’s how real it is: not transient and passing; not just an event or the result of a few people getting together to do “God” stuff. The Church exists: it is a real thing. And look at what God is going to make of us: a bride, adorned for her husband. An amazing city that shines with the glory of God like a jewel. Jesus loved the Church and gave himself for her, in order to present the Church to himself as a Bride without fault or blemish. And at the end of time, the church will be faultless, glorious and beautiful. Isn’t that amazing?
Let’s turn the clock back from there, to just a wee bit earlier in the end-times judgement that John sees in Revelation. In chapter 17, one of those same “Seven angels with the seven bowls” says to him, ‘Come, I will show you...” the same sort of angelic creature with the same words, except that this time he it's “come and see the judgement of the great prostitute Babylon.” Revelation is full of contrasts: between real worship and false worship, real church and false church; between judgement and glory, or punishment and grace. The false – every institution or individual that encourages or gives itself for the worship of idols whether they are religious, political, financial or cultural, will be judged. The real Church will come down from heaven onto this earth made new, in glory. That’s the beautiful result of God’s grace.
Let’s turn the clock back again – how far I don’t know – to the beginning of the 21st century. Our time. Look around you. What do you see? The Church! Now I thank God for what he has done with us, and I thank God for the gifts he has given and the commitment and sacrifice that you put into the life of the Church. But there are some disappointments and things we are struggling with as a fellowship. And we are not alone. Chris drew my attention to an article in the Sunday Herald a week ago: Albert Bogle (former Moderator of the Kirk) warned the Church of Scotland “We as a denomination could easily be sleepwalking into oblivion”. The Scottish churches census shows church attendance down from 854,000 in 1984 to 390,000 in 2016. More than halved in just over thirty years. And then there are the over 100 million people worldwide who still profess faith in Jesus, but don’t attend a church.
40 years and two weeks ago, I got off a number 68 bus at South Nor wood Hill, dragging a big black suitcase through the big gates and up another hill, to start training for Ministry. And I didn’t sign up to bury dying churches. I didn’t sign up to preside over something that is declining and ineffectual. And I didn’t sign up to lead something that even some believers no longer find relevant to their lives. Sometimes the church looks and feels like it is a mess.
Let’s turn the clock back again – this time I do know how long – 2000 years – to the time when Jesus said “I will build my Church “ and gave himself up for the Church. To the time when the church was all new and fresh. To the time of its foundation. Of course it wasn’t perfect even then: at the beginning of the book of Revelation, Jesus speaks to seven actual churches that were there in Asia Minor: and five of the seven were warned to sort themselves out, and the other two were told to hang in through difficult times. But on the foundation stones are the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. It doesn’t matter who these guys were: whether Judas was out; whether Paul or Matthias got Judas’ place. They represent the whole apostolic movement on which the Church was built. And there are two things about these Apostles.
Firstly, they were witnesses of Jesus . The Church is built on the story of Jesus, the things Jesus said and did; the witness of those who walked with Jesus, and were discipled by Jesus. It is built on the sacrifice of Jesus. It is built on the example of Jesus, as one who prayed; one who showed God’s power; one who lived with absolute simplicity and lived for others; one who challenged what was wrong; one who dealt so gently with broken people. One who journeyed with others in honesty and acceptance, modelling as well as talking about kingdom life, gently but firmly turning people around and pointing them in the right way (that is, discipling them). The church is meant to be full of the attitudes and actions of Jesus. It is meant to be living the character and conduct of Jesus, and forming the character and conduct of Jesus in new Christians. As congregations, if we are struggling, we need to get back to this: the values, the character, and the simple agenda of Jesus.
Secondly, they were sent out. That, at core, is what “Apostle” means. From the very beginning of his work, Jesus. called twelve, to be with him (that’s the stuff we were looking at just a moment ago) and to be sent out. (Mark 3. 14) the parallel passages in Matthew 10. 2 and Luke 6. 13 use the word Apostles; Mark only uses the word Apostles after they have been sent out and come back from their big adventure. As congregations, we need to recover the big adventure of being out there, in mission. Not hoping people will suddenly decide it’s time they came to us. We go into our world.
So having the names of the twelve apostles written on the foundations of the Church, challenges us to focus on Jesus, to be like Jesus, to talk about Jesus and demonstrate the life of Jesus. And it challenges us to be outward-focussed as a community. Apostolic genius is a focus on Jesus – being the bride of Jesus, living under Jesus’ headship – and a focus on being out there, among the last, the lost and the least.
But we need to turn the clock even further back… In between these twelve foundation stones with the names of the twelve apostles on, are twelve gates – with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel on. And Dawn was teaching a couple of weeks ago from the story of Hosea, how God saw Israel as his bride – he loved her even when she let him down. And that means that the Old Testament people of God – faithful Israel – and the New Testament people of God – the Church – are one.
Paul was very much aware of the big division in the early church – between Jewish and non-Jewish people. So he says in Eph 2. 15f that Christ’s “purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.“ One church. Reuben, Judah and Benjamin alongside Peter, James and John. Jew and gentile. Old and young. Male and female. Extrovert and introvert. Rock and roll and classical… celebrating diversity and unity. Not just tolerating each other, but being one body.
The bride, the body, the building, all tell us that the Church is a people – and not just a floating mass of people. But a living entity. It is one. An algae bloom on a pond, is a floating mass of cells: they’re all the same, they may glow in the dark, but they are not going to get up and walk away from that pond, because they are not a body. Church is an entity, not just a collective noun, like a flock of sheep or a shoal of fish, "a church of Christians". It is an entity: it has life, identity, purpose, calling, beauty, and value as Church, not just focussed in on the individuals who are the Church.
Who does God love? God so loved the world that he gave his only son… (John 3. 16). Paul says Jesus “loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2.20) He loves every part of the Church individually. But Jesus also “loved the Church and gave himself for her.” (Eph 5. 25)
So the church is one; it is organic not a machine but a body. It is local and universal. It is in every generation. that’s the point of the twelve tribes. It is Jesus focussed and outward facing. That is the point of the twelve apostles.
It looks as if there are plenty of wrinkles, plooks, teeth missing, spare tyre, varicose veins in the “bride of Christ… But Jesus is going to present the Church without spot or blemish! The future’s looking good, people! The Church is that bride – she’s going to look gorgeous, and we are going to be part of it. No – we are part of it. As we prepare for the wedding feast, let’s live united, organic, Jesus-centred and engaged with our world.
