What Is Our Boasting About?

This morning as I was commuting to work, I heard an advertisement for one of the local mega-churches in the area that struck me.  It saddened me, actually.  Listening to this commercial it occurred to me that the Church has completely lost touch with our mission.  We no longer have a handle of precisely what it is that we have to offer the world. 

The commercial featured a friendly pastor inviting visitors to the Church.  He boasted about the new worship building which was receiving brand new furniture as we speak.  He bragged about the children’s youth building that came stocked with a gym, a skate park, and even a rock-climbing wall.  He highlighted the enthusiastic volunteers.  He advertised the on-site café and coffee shop.  He noted that visitors would be warmly greeted.  All of these things sounded like great attractions.  It sounded like the envy of any social club or fitness center. 

Therein lie the problem.  All of the things this well-meaning pastor highlighted as draws to his Church could be provided by any worldly institution.  There was nothing distinct or unique in the message he conveyed, nothing separating the Church from the world at large.  On that matter, there was deafening silence. 

This pastor seemed to be confused about what it is that the Church has to offer this world. 

Nearly two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul articulated what makes the Church distinct and ever-relevant to a world in bondage to the power of sin, death, and the devil. 

Paul communicated the difference between what the world has to offer versus what the Church has to offer. 

“For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God…But by his doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” – 1 Corinthians 1:22-24, 30-31

In his opening of his first epistle to the Church in Corinth, Paul placed his finger firmly on the pulse.  It is Christ, and Him crucified, that is the beating heart of the Church.  And it is this alone that makes the Church unique and distinct from the world. 

When we boast about gym facilities, skate-parks, and rock-climbing walls, are we offering anything that any up-scale fitness center cannot provide?  When we brag about coffee shops and café’s are we offering anything that any Star-Bucks or Panera bread cannot offer?  When we speak of new building facilities and furniture, are we offering anything lasting that this world will not try to counter-offer? 

The one thing that we possess that cannot be provided anywhere else is Christ crucified for sins.  No other earthly institution is equipped to offer this to our families.  We offer the one thing needful thing that cannot be obtained from anywhere else. 

We offer the news that we are poor miserable sinners, hopelessly indebted to the power of sin, death, and the devil.  We offer the news that we are dead in our trespasses and sins and cannot free ourselves from their grip.  And we offer the news that God so loved the world that He sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, through whom and for whom all things were created, to come to us in the flesh, to ransom us from the power of these enemies with His own flesh and blood upon the cross.  We offer the news that He was raised from death, and the assurance that His resurrection gives to us that we are likewise freed from the power of sin and the death that it brings.  It is this message that makes us unique.  It is this message that makes us distinct.  It is this message that makes us eternally relevant.  It is in the cross of Christ that we make our boast. 

Instead of boasting in skate parks and rock-climbing facilities, let us boast in our baptismal font.  It is here where Christ claims us, where we die to our sin and are raised to life in our Lord and Savior, and where we obtain a good conscience having been cleansed of our sins. 

Instead of boasting of new furniture, let us boast in the well-worn kneeler rails and confessional booths.  It is here Christ has promised to hear our confession, and where our Pastor declares the forgiveness of all of our sins. 

Let us also boast of the old lectern and pews from which the Word of God is rightly divided and proclaimed, assuring us of the righteousness that Christ brings, and the sanctification that the Holy Spirit works in us through the means of Word and Sacrament. 

Instead of boasting of coffee shops and café’s let us boast of the communion rail around the alter.  It is here where we partake of the true body and blood of our Savior given and shed for the remission of sins that brings eternal life to us.  It is here where we are assured that we are beneficiaries in the new covenant in His blood that Christ has instituted for us. 

Let us boast of funerals that proclaim not the supposed works of the recently dead, but of Christ who died for us and promises to raise us body and soul in a new heaven and a new earth freed for good from the power of sin, death, and the devil. 

Let us not forget what it is that we have to offer this world.  We offer God incarnate, died on the cross and risen at the tomb, for YOU.