Scaffolding Inevitable
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” — 1 Thessalonians 5:23
The facade of 88 Tremont Street has been poised for an historic facelift—the first since she was built in 1896. The conversation started a few years back when somebody walked by our church building and complained to the city inspector about a large slab of marble above the elevator-side entrance, which appeared to be drooping and ready to fall down on the heads of those walking below. It turns out that the marble slab is secure, however, the inspection that resulted from the complaint revealed a number of vital repairs to the terra cotta that are needed, prompting a violation. There are some cracks in the wall—large stone panels that need replacing among other things. Over the last two-plus years, I’ve worked with a grant specialist and by our efforts and the help of many others, we were able to raise over $1.5 million to cover the costs of the project. Surely, the Lord provides!
This coming Monday, the staging and scaffolding for the project will finally go up. It’s estimated that the work will take no less than a year to complete. The thing about scaffolding on a building is that it isn’t pretty. And at times, it only seems to get in the way. It can be compared to our sanctification. The Heidelberg Catechism defines sanctification this way: “The work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” If you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time, you know that sanctification, which can also be defined simply as “being gradually made into the image and likeness of Jesus” can be a painful work. The truth of God often comes home to us through trials and tribulations. God can be found standing beside his children with sharp tools, chiseling away the parts of them that refuse to surrender in worship.
Like the facade project we’re about to embark on, holiness is costly, requires demolition, and seems to take too long. We spend our entire Christian lives, if you accept the image, with the scaffolding up, with the promise that when we finally see Christ in glory, the scaffolding will fall away and what’s left will be a sight for the ages—we will be like Him. For now, we can learn to appreciate God’s work of sanctification in us because it’s necessary in the long haul. One day, over a year from Monday, the scaffolding surrounding our building will be taken down and we’ll have a gleaming facade. Even more stunning will be you and I when Christ comes back. It will be then that we will declare that the costly, messy, often painful work of sanctification was more than worth it.
