by Pastor Douglas Brauner

…the Only Thing

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

Wedged between four and five story buildings is the church of St. Johann Nepomuk, better known as the Asam Church built, as you might guess, by brothers, Egid and Cosmas Asam. They built it as a personal chapel dominated by Late Baroque influences.

I couldn’t find anything to focus on as I stood in the narthex, even trying to find a good composition was difficult. I was under sensory overload. The colors were spectacular. The artwork, paintings and sculptures were magnificent, yet confusing. There was no story other than that of a beautiful mess.

Is it possible that the church of the twenty-first century looks like this Late Baroque chapel? Are people under sensory overload with all our announcements, activities, and happenings that we obscure the main thing?

Have we forgotten the main thing?

 ^“But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
Galatians 6:14 English Standard Version

I’m not saying that we get rid of all the activities in which we are engage, but do we have Paul’s laser focus that our boasting is in the cross of Jesus? The cross that has united us to the Father? Is the mercy that God has shown us in Jesus at the center of our coffee and donut time, our social events, and other activities?

It’s not that we don’t know the main thing. In fact, I believe we’re doing what we do because of Jesus’ love for us, his forgiveness, his presence. It’s not that we lack the heart to know nothing but the “cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,” but maybe it’s time for the church to remember that Jesus is the ONLY thing and that the cross of Jesus stands high and lifted up in all that we do. May our worshipping communities have a clear focus when people stand in the “narthex” of our activities seeing Jesus in us.

Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado