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Writer's pictureSarah Lil

Even When Steeples Are Falling

As my parents and I walked the long sidewalk up to our church just as we had countless Sundays before, we could see just how different this view was different from any other.


The bricks were falling off the steeples of the church. Literally falling. Off the church.


We joked that we had better be singing "Built on the Rock" that morning because "Built on the Rock the Church shall stand, Even when steeples are falling." Again, because the church was literally falling apart.


And that's the whole point of this hymn. Even when the [physical] church is falling, the [community of all believers] Church never falls. How Christ chooses to live with us in love, making our bodies his temple. For we are God's house of living stones, built for His own habitation.


All this not to say that the physical church should be dismissed. No, no. For it is in church that we receive His good gifts of forgiveness, life, and salvation through Word and Sacrament.


"Here stands that font before our eyes, Telling how God has received us.

The altar recalls Christ's sacrifice, And what His Supper here gives us.

Here sound the Scriptures that proclaim Christ yesterday, today, the same.

And evermore our Redeemer."

LSB 645, Built on the Rock, verse 4



 

My home church was over 160 years old at the time. The church repairs took some time.


My husband and I were married here about a year after, and in this wedding photo you can see the scaffolds on the steeple second from the left.




Honestly, I don't remember if we actually sang that hymn that morning when the steeples were falling at my home church.


But every time we do sing this hymn in church or I look closely to find the scaffolds in this print hanging on our wall, I remember that day and the very visual reminder that we believers stand on the Rock of Jesus Christ.



 


"I know my own, My own know me.

You, not the world, my face shall see.

My peace I leave with you, Amen."

LSB 645, Built on the Rock, Verse 5



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