In 2015 there was an
amazing headline, “Sunken Church Emerges from River in Mexico.” Curious, I
clicked on the link and saw images of an ancient structure jutting up from the
water, like a man-made island. Truly, it was like something you’d see in an
Indiana Jones movie.
The article explained the
phenomenon: A group of monks moved to southern Mexico and built the church in
1564, thinking the area would be heavily populated. Unfortunately, a plague
devastated the region and the church was abandoned by 1776. In 1966, a dam was
built flooding the area, and the resulting lake covered the church and hid it
from view. But, recently a drought caused water levels to drop more than 80 ft.
and the church reappeared out of the waters like a revitalized shrine. However,
meteorologists soon expect rains to return and the waters will rise, and the
church will again disappear beneath its murky waves.[1]
As I thought about that
odd picture, a couple of spiritual lesson also surfaced. First, as the world faces greater adversity, the church should emerge as
a source of charity. The long season of drought caused the waters to recede
and that’s when that ancient church, which had always been just below waterline,
came to the forefront. In the same way, our world is growing increasingly
hostile. Violence and viruses, terrorism and treachery, corruption and
cataclysms are increasing day-by-day. As a result, people’s souls are thirsty
for mercy, for love and for hope. It’s times like these when the church can
rise from obscurity and be a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. We
have the greatest message, about the greatest Savior, who gives the greatest
offer of salvation we can imagine. The church was made to emerge during crisis.
Second, even though the church is surrounded by
adversity, she will endure throughout eternity. The true Church of Jesus Christ will never be
overwhelmed by the world. The waters may swirl around us, but the Lord has
promised to build His Church and keep it strong until He returns.
Take note of what the
Apostle Peter wrote, “Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by
men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being
built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the
Scripture, “Behold, I lay in Zion A chief cornerstone, elect, precious, And he
who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.” Therefore, to you who
believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, “The stone which the
builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone.” (1 Peter 2:4-7)
Did you see the phrase, “you
also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house” in verse 2:5. For
the past 2,000 years there has been a major construction project going on. It’s
called the ekklesia in Greek, or the
church, those who are called out from the mass of humanity to become part of
Christ’s eternal edifice. Each time someone trusts Christ as Savior another
stone is quarried out of the pit of sin and fitted into the spiritual house He’s
building. Jesus has carefully superintended over every phase of the
construction process as the Divine foreman.
Charles Swindoll has
written, “It may look to us that the church on earth is condemned property,
worn out and dilapidated. But the truth is Christ is the Master Architect, and
every stone is being chiseled, polished and placed exactly where He designed it
to fit. The project is right on schedule. Never forget, even on blue days, we
are living stones in a spiritual house.”[2]
This idiom of Christ as
the cornerstone of the church is found elsewhere in the New Testament. Paul
wrote in Eph. 2:19-22, “19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but
you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself
being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together,
grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built
together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
Peter goes on to make his
point ever sharper by quoting from a prophecy in Is. 28:16, in which Christ was
compared to the chief cornerstone. In architecture the cornerstone was the most
important place to begin construction. The cornerstone set all the horizontal
and vertical dimensions for the structure. If the cornerstone was skewed by a
few degrees then whole structure would be out of plumb. Because, Christ is the
flawless cornerstone of the church that means that it will stand the test of
time, everything is aligned properly and nothing will shake it.
You can always tell when a
new building is being constructed by the massive scaffolding that encircles the
new building as it rises from the ground. As long as you see the scaffolding,
you know the building isn’t finished. The scaffolding is the last thing to go.
But when it is removed, you know the building is finished.
Every local church is part
of the visible scaffolding around the invisible temple God has been building
for the last 2,000 years. When the final living stone has been placed in the
temple, the scaffolding will come tumbling down, the trumpet will sound, the
archangel will shout, and we will get to see the grand work God has been doing
for the last 20 centuries.
As C.S. Lewis remarked,
“The structural position in the Church which the humblest Christian occupies is
eternal and even cosmic. The Church will outlive the universe; in it the
individual person will outlive the stars. Everything that is joined to the
immortal head, will share His immorality . . . As members in the body of
Christ, as stones and pillars in the temple, we are assured eternity and shall
live to remember the galaxies as an old tale.”[3]
[1] “What
Lies Beneath: Sunken Church Emerges from Water,” CNN News, 20 October 2015 <http://www.cnn.com/
2015/10/20/architecture/gallery/mexico-submerged-church/index.html>
[2]
Charles R. Swindoll, Laugh Again, Hope
Again (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 310.
[3]
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (San
Francisco: Harper One, 1949), 171, 173.
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