Several centuries ago in a mountain village in Europe, a wealthy nobleman wondered what legacy he should leave to his townspeople. He made a good decision. He decided to build them a church. No one was permitted to see the plans or the inside of the church until it was finished. At its grand opening, the people gathered and marveled at the beauty of the new church. Everything had been thought of and included. It was a masterpiece. But then someone said, “Wait a minute! Where are the lamps? It is really quite dark in here. How will the church be lighted?” The nobleman pointed to some brackets in the walls, and then he gave each family a lamp, which they were to bring with them each time they came to worship. “Each time you are here’” the nobleman said, “the place where you are seated will be lighted. Each time you are not here, that place will be dark. This is to remind you that whenever you fail to come to church, some part of God’s house will be dark”

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Some years ago, a new pastor was called to a spiritually dead church in a small Oklahoma town. The pastor spent the first week calling on as many members as possible, inviting them to the first Sunday service. But the effort failed. In spite of many calls, not a single member showed up for worship! So the pastor placed a notice in the local paper stating that since the church was dead, the pastor was going to give it a decent, Christian burial. The funeral for the church would be held at 2 p.m. on the following Sunday.
Morbidly curious, the whole town turned out for the “funeral.” In front of the pulpit, there was a large casket, smothered in flowers. After the eulogy was given, the pastor invited the congregation to come forward and pay their respects to the dead church. The long line of mourners filed by. Each one peered curiously into the open casket, and then quickly turned away with a guilty, sheepish look. For inside the casket, tilted at just the right angle was a large mirror. Each one saw his own reflection in the mirror as perhaps never before!
That is still what happens when human beings allow the living Christ to confront them in their sinful brokenness. This special day calls us to make a choice to receive God’s Christ, and to let our lives be made whole again by the power of God. As you begin this Holy Week, can you truly say in your heart, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” The choice is up to you!

Robert A. Beringer, Turning Points, CSS Publishing Company, 1995.

If you took the same excuses that people use for not going to church and apply them to other important areas of life you’d realize how inconsistent we can be in our logic. For example: Reasons Not To Wash

1. I was forced to as a child.
2. People who make soap are only after your money.
3. I wash on special occasions like Christmas and Easter.
4. People who wash are hypocrites-they think they are cleaner than everyone else.
5. There are so many different kinds of soap, I can’t decide which one is best.
6. I used to wash, but it got boring so I stopped.
7. None of my friends wash.
8. The bathroom is never warm enough in the winter or cool enough in the summer.
9. I’ll start washing when I get older and dirtier.
10. I can’t spare the time

The early church had a stormy relationship with the wicked and powerful Roman government. Cycles of severe persecution interrupted by tenuous peace recurred at the whim of the emperor. Roman officials, ignorant of the actual teachings and practices of true Christians, often acted out of bigotry, fear, superstition, or misinformation. The royal court assumed that the growing Christian church operated along the same lines as their own greedy religions.
The emperor, coveting the wealth these Christians must surely possess, summoned their head bishop to the royal court and ordered him to produce “the treasures of the church.” The frustrated bishop protested that the church had no gold, jewels, or other valuables (which was indeed true at this point in history). The emperor, brushing aside the bishop’s objection, demanded that the riches of the church be brought to him in the morning. The bishop left the royal presence quietly.
The next day the bishop dutifully appeared at the palace doorway. He was empty-handed. “I told you to bring me the treasures of the church!” the emperor raged.
The bishop then invited the emperor to look out at the palace steps. Gathered together, peering sheepishly at the great doors of the royal palace rising above them, was a mass of ragged beggars, cripples, slaves, and outcasts.
“These,” said the bishop with a sweep of his arm, “are the treasures of the church.”
For his unappreciated but accurate insight, the good bishop was promptly martyred. The treasure of the church is people. The church is not a building; it is not a doctrine; it is not a program. The body of Christ is the church.