The Church Only Has One Door

• Preacher: The Rev. Andrew Van Kirk

• Passage: Hebrews 10:11-14,19-25

I would never do this to you in Advent or Christmas tide, because it would spoil the mood. But did you know that the traditional site of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem is actually a cave, not a stable?

I know. It really works against the image we all have in our heads, but in Jesus’ day animals were often put up at night in a cave rather than a building made of wood (wood, after all, being a rather scarce resource in much of Israel). And so the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is built over a cave.

You can go there to that church, and then wait in a line to go down into the cave. I say wait in a line, but that’s a lie. They don’t really believe in lines in the Holy Land. It’s a cultural thing I guess. It’s more of a sand through the hour glass situation. There’s a semi-circular set of steps that lead down from the main level of the church to a doorway, through which you access the cave.

Here, this is what it looked like the day I was there.

Everyone is trying to go down the stairs and through that door.

Now as a method of crowd control, I maintain this system leaves quite a lot to be desired. But there was something beautiful about this scene to me, something that struck me enough to take this little video, something about all the people of God coming together and entering through this one door.

There are people from all over the world, all different ages and races, all different denominations, rich and poor, in that video. And we’re all going to go through that door to get to the traditional side of Jesus’ birth.

In the portion of the letter the the Hebrews we read today, the author writes about how we all “enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way he opened to us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh).”

The author is pointing out how we have access to God through Jesus. People from all over the world, all different ages and races, all different denominations, rich and poor – and we all get to God through Jesus. Nobody gets to do it privately. You have to come together, because there’s only one way in, through Jesus. The Church only has one door to heaven.

For much of the last 18 months there has been no such crowd trying to get through the door leading to the place of Jesus’ birth. Israel has spent much of the pandemic closed to foreign tourists; and Bethlehem itself is a Palestinian town, most of the residents are Muslim. The Christians remaining there are few. There has been no heaving, breathing mass of pilgrims trying to enter the sanctuary.

There are good reasons for that, of course, namely all the heaving and breathing. But it means that this living image of the word of God has disappeared. Something, surely has been lost.

At the end of our scripture reading from Hebrews, the author expresses his concern that some have stopped meeting together. He wasn’t, of course, concerned about the emptiness of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem during the pandemic. But he was concerned that people’s unwillingness to come together with one another on earth in the name of Jesus would leave them unprepared for the great coming together with one another as we go through the heavenly door, through the new and living way to God Christ has opened for us.

And so he tells us something about the virtue of coming together in community, something about why we gather as we do this morning, something about why it is important that there is another breathing, flesh and blood person singing off-key in the row behind you.

We’re in the final verse now, verse 25, of the reading. “Let us consider how to provoke one another to good deeds; not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more so as you see the Day approaching.”

One of the best ways to put out a fire is to spread out the coals. A lonely coal grows cold. And not only does the coal eventually go out, but what’s left of the fire is weaker too. This is true of campfires; and also fires of faith. Yours is not the only heart you care for when you get up and go to church.

Now regarding that “habit of some” who are “neglecting to meet together:” we who are here gathered together must remember that not everyone can be here yet.

I’m so very grateful that we have online worship. We work hard – especially Tim, he works especially hard – to make sure it’s as good as we can make it each week. It’s a way we care for our brothers and sisters, and our visitors. For a while, and still for some, it’s the only way we can meet together.

But I also want to remind us that the Church exists to bring people together in-person. And it exists to bring them together because we all have to be brought in-person to Christ, and so to God. We all have to come to Christ because, as verse 14 says, “by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”

Christian community is practice for heavenly community. And the way we practice the great bringing together that is our salvation is to meet together at the Church. You can only spend so much time in the film room. In the end, salvation is not something we’ll be able to watch from our couch.

This is why COVID has been a crisis for the Church; it has injured our ability to meet together.

This is also why social media is a crisis for the Church. Social media promises a lie: namely that we can be together without being together.

The empirical reality that social media has proved an enormously divisive force should have revealed that lie for what it is, but apparently not. Next up, apparently, is the metaverse, where “meet together” as be avatars inhabiting a digital world through our AR and VR headsets.

Jesus did not come to save your digital avatar.

If Jesus had to take on a body to save us, then we better not imagine we can ditch our bodies to save ourselves. The relentless pursuit of a disembodied community in the last several decades is corrupting our souls.

The Church is a peculiar sort of organization. It’s an intentional community that gathers diverse people together in the name of one Lord. Many people, one Lord. We who are many are one body, because we all share one bread, one cup. This is but a faint image of the day we all gather around Christ, but it is important we practice all the same. It’s how we grow into the image of what we eternally will become.

And so we meet together to encourage one another, to provoke one another to love and to good deeds. When we come to this place we not exist as employees, or clients, or customers; we do not have account numbers or ID numbers or test scores; our demographic information does not matter; none of this is going on TikTok.

We come together to stir up love and good deeds, to encourage one another. To sing off key, to share in the Lord’s Prayer, to have someone to share in our grandson’s football victory or our spouse’s appointment with the doctor. We bring food for the hungry, presents for children, prayer for the sick. We remember – because we see it – that while the headshot looks professional on LinkedIn, that the actually hair is a little grayer in-person and that face is sometimes streaked with tears. And that the kids are all getting taller.

We experience again that our lives are not a carefully curated set of moments to like, but rollercoasters with peaks of excitement and valleys of fear. We take heart that there are other real people trying to follow Jesus too, to love and serve, and to make their way to the door of heaven. And we remember that we’re all, day by day, getting a little closer to that door. And so we sing our songs and say our prayers and eat our bread and wine and share a hug and we go forth with God’s grace a little warmer, a little stronger, a little more resistant for the world that wants to tear us apart.

The Church does not exist except to bring people together into the kingdom of God. The whole of people, bodies and souls, minds and spirits. The Church only has one door; we have to come together in Jesus eventually. Let’s start now. Let’s start here. “Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together…but encouraging one another, and all the more so as you see the Day approaching.”