Good Friday’s Answers to Wounded Church Members

[This article is also available in Turkish.]

I function a priest in an Anglican church in Dallas, and I’ve the privilege and accountability of pastoring many individuals who’ve skilled ache by the hands of a church. Some in our congregation have been outright abused. Some have had their religion shaken by the autumn of a frontrunner. Some have been pushed out of congregations for asking legit questions.

And whereas church damage could not at all times be the most effective time period to call and accumulate all these completely different experiences, it’s simple that many in my very own congregation have suffered hurt from the physique of Christ. There’s a distinction between a church hurting somebody and the church hurting somebody, particularly when it comes to the therapeutic and reconciliation that should occur regionally and individual to individual. However it’s simply as vital to border our experiences of ache throughout the church as an entire.

In any case, Paul insists that Christ has one physique, the church, being constructed up in love into the fullness of Christ our head (Eph. 4:4, 15–16). He additionally insists that when one member of the physique suffers, all endure (1 Cor. 12:26). A strong view of the church as Christ’s physique should embrace each the integrity and well being of that physique and the ache that physique experiences from its personal members.

In listening to the tales of ache in our congregation, our church has felt the accountability of caring for these folks nicely. My spouse, a licensed counselor, and I wished to deal with these hurts in a setting the place we may acknowledge their wounds and attempt to assist them take a significant step towards therapeutic. So we not too long ago hosted a weekend seminar referred to as “The Ache and Promise of Christian Neighborhood.”

We knew that we couldn’t take care of all of the complexities of each story in our time collectively, however we may make a begin. We discerned that naming the struggling was a starting point. We sensed that for folks to embrace once more the promise of Christian group, they first wanted to acknowledge and have others acknowledge their ache. In our time collectively, the picture of the church as Christ’s wounded physique held inside it each the ache and the promise of Christian group.

Christ’s church suffers in some ways. A few of this ache, just like the ache of need and persecution, comes from outdoors the church. A few of this ache, nevertheless, like corruption and schism, comes from inside. Some wounds, in different phrases, are self-inflicted.

We should acknowledge the injuries that Christ’s physique can inflict on itself and likewise acknowledge the way in which these wounds can fester and go unhealed. So too should we acknowledge that the ache of the wound is commonly compounded by denial and dismissal, and typically by the safety of those that inflicted the preliminary wound.

Denial can occur on the particular person stage, the place we’re reluctant to confess the damage as a result of that admission seems like it’s going to value an excessive amount of. However to really heal, folks should specify who damage them and what occurred. As Michelle Van Loon writes, “It’s vital to establish the supply and scope of the damage.”

Denial additionally occurs on the institutional stage. A extra strong view of the church as Christ’s physique may also help us confront institutional issues and battle as we higher perceive that Christ is constructing his church, and the gates of hell won’t prevail towards it (Matt. 16:18). In different phrases, a frontrunner could fall or a congregation could dissolve—and these aren’t any small issues—however within the scope of historical past, Christ will construct his church. He’ll restore his physique.

Simply as denial and dismissal of the wound compounds the preliminary wound, so too do straightforward explanations. Within the face of ache skilled by the hands of the church, well-meaning congregants typically trot out espresso cup verses and Sunday faculty platitudes. Although they might imply no hurt, they find yourself changing into like Job’s pals, who cling to absolutes and simple explanations when Job is enduring incomprehensible struggling (Job 2:11).

Such careless consolation is commonly a mode of self-protection. In any case, if Job’s pals are improper about Job’s struggling, then they’re improper about their view of God and actuality too. To acknowledge Job’s struggling in full would have been too pricey for them, in order that they accept their worn-out understandings of righteousness. In the long run, the Lord confronts these false comforters, telling them that they “haven’t spoken the reality about me, as my servant Job has” (42:7–9).

Acknowledging the wound, transferring previous denial and dismissal, and resisting straightforward explanations—none of that is straightforward. However a wound denied can’t be healed. When the ache comes from contained in the physique, in some sense, it hurts extra and is more durable to acknowledge.

How can we study to call this ache? By turning our gaze to Christ’s personal wounded physique on the cross.

On Good Friday particularly, we flip our gaze to the person of sorrows who bears our affliction. The paradox of our religion is that in his wounding is our therapeutic, in order vital as it’s for the church to acknowledge our personal wounds, it’s much more essential to have a look at the one who bears our wounds in his wounding.

Christ’s wounds maintain not solely the promise of our therapeutic but additionally the thriller of the church’s origin. Because the early church meditated on the Crucifixion, they turned their consideration to a selected verse, John 19:34, which data that “one of many troopers pierced Jesus’ facet with a spear, bringing a sudden move of blood and water.”

In meditating on this verse, many within the early church insisted that from the wounded facet of Christ, the church was born. Origen (A.D. 185–254) captures this conviction in a potent phrase: “From the wound in Christ’s facet has come forth the church, and he has made her his bride.”

The church was born from a wound. The early church noticed the final Adam hanging heavy on the cross within the sleep of demise, however from his facet, his wound, a brand new Eve was introduced forth—the church. Born as we’re from that wound, the church journeys with Christ via Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. In his ardour is our personal path and our personal therapeutic.

The sequence of these days reminds us that the form of Christ’s victory is a U. He begins his descent on the cross, and in demise slides into the grave. Within the darkness of demise, his journey doesn’t flip upward till the bottom level is reached. The trough of that U reminds us that his solidarity with us is absolute, extending even into the bottom reaches of demise. However the plummet downward abruptly swings upward with the momentum of affection. He bursts forth in victory, but when he emerges, he nonetheless bears his wounds.

In studying to ponder the injuries of the crucified Christ, we’d additionally study to gaze on the church’s personal wounded physique, not as a result of our wounds will have an effect on our therapeutic however as a result of the pinnacle of the church is the Man of Sorrows who has borne our ache and who has been raised up out of demise. By his wounds we’re healed (Is. 53:5). By his wound the church was born.

As my very own love for Christ’s church has deepened, so too has my disappointment on the hurt it’s able to, particularly to its personal members. How can we study to carry the brightness of this love subsequent to the darkness of our collective ache? Many have helpfully highlighted the facility of lament within the therapeutic course of. In lament, prayers that when appeared off-limits abruptly articulate our ache and isolation within the presence of God. However there’s one other form of prayer that may support in our therapeutic—praying for the church because the church, praying as his physique for his physique.

Earlier than he dies, Christ prays for all who would consider in him (John 17:20–21). In praying for his physique, Christ fashions how we ought to wish as nicely. These of us who’ve been joined to Christ’s church should additionally pray for his church. We by no means pray for the church in a indifferent or disinterested manner. We pray for the church, as the church, inside the church. Having been buried with Christ in baptism and raised to stroll in newness of life, we pray as those that have been integrated into his physique.

However how can we pray in a manner that acknowledges each the ache and the promise of this physique? A prayer by William Laud, the Seventeenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury and martyr, collected in The Guide of Frequent Prayer captures nicely the two-sided nature of the physique of Christ:

Gracious Father, we pray to your holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all reality, in all reality with all peace. The place it’s corrupt, purify it; the place it’s in error, direct it; the place in something it’s amiss, reform it. The place it’s proper, strengthen it; the place it’s in need, present for it; the place it’s divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen.

At our seminar, we ended our time by praying this prayer collectively, with one small change. We added the phrase “the place it’s wounded, heal it.” It was a manner of acknowledging the truth of our ache, but additionally acknowledging the one who can heal that ache. In so doing, we turned our eyes from our personal wounds to his.

To wish because the church, for the church, throughout the church means we pray as a physique asking for its personal therapeutic, as a bride asking for the bridegroom to scrub us with the water of the Phrase.

We pray because the church, for the church, within the church as an act of hope, figuring out that the wound of our start was additionally raised up via resurrection. Even now, it’s a wound that Christ bears as an indication of victory over sin, disgrace, and demise.

Christopher Myers (PhD, Durham) is the curate of St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church in Dallas. He blogs at The Street Between Right here and There.