Ralph did not know when he first began to be aware of the healing effect of the church on him. He was a policeman and had been on the force for ten years. As a policeman you try to convince yourself that you are protecting the good people of the community but day after day you see the dregs of society. It is hard not to become cynical. Not only is your life on the line but often you are in a position of playing God with respect to another person’s life.
He had had to kill a person two years ago. It took him fully six months to get over that, if getting over it means being able to stuff it far enough down in your awareness that it does not haunt your every day. It was shortly after that that he began to accompany his wife, Sarah, to worship on Sunday morning.
At some point he began to notice how the architecture seem to lift his spirits. As he walked down the aisle, the huge cross seemed to be saying to him, “Look up! There is more to life than your immediate experience.” Then the call to worship and the opening hymn of praise seemed to continue that message.
However feebly, he realized that he was acknowledging the reality of God and his need to offer praise to that which was greater than himself. He would look forward to hearing the Scriptures because he recognized that they were like a voice across time. Again and again they seem to address him from out of eternity and speak a word that he needed to hear. Each Sunday seemed like a window on to eternity that reminded him that he was not alone and that no event was so final that it could seal his fate. In his job, he needed that message repeatedly.
In some mysterious way, that is what it means to reach out and touch Christ in the Body of Christ.
