Pathway to Heaven 9-9-9

Anderson, South Carolina

About one hundred and fifty of us attend a church that is truly cozy, especially on dull cloudy days. The darkly stained open rafters and Victorian stained glass windows in the side aisles of our hundred year old sanctuary add a quiet, visual, and safe sensibility to our liturgical worship experience. The brilliant 19th century gothic stained glass in the apse and the luminous aureate lighting over the oak altar and rood screen create a compelling visual invitation to come forward and partake of the Numinous. It is an easy place to let go and place one’s brain in neutral.

Today found me ushering during the early service. In this capacity, I spend nearly the entire service standing in the back of the sanctuary looking down the oak floor of the center aisle to our beautiful altar with its magnificent tapestries, candlesticks, burse and veil, and other accoutrements of worship. In a moment of free association, I began wondering about all of the different reasons people would pass down that center aisle. I wondered about the various reasons I have passed down that aisle. The worn finish on the oak floor boards suggested to me that many people have passed down this aisle over the past century, some as willing participants in moments of great joy, others as despairing witnesses to the severe brevity and challenge of life.

Infants in christening garb are carried into the bright lights to be acknowledged as grand blessings from God. Young happy parents give their children to the care of God and ask for our help as a congregation to lead them into good upright living.

Newly minted graduates from local high schools and universities are invited forward to receive new bibles and prayer books, perhaps a cross. Their lives are clean slates filled with infinite possibilities.

Young women in their white satin dresses and veils make the journey of their deepest romantic dreams, going to the fore to meet the love of their young lives at the altar. Their white knights share with them their first conjoined communion.

Those who recently have found a new faith or resurrected an old one will find their way to the holy space before the altar where they make public testimony of their faith and receive the sacrament of baptism or make a commitment to our community by way of confirmation.

Some of us process towards the luminous image of Jesus the Shepherd as part of the choir or as part of those who find satisfaction and calling in serving the congregation as vested thurifers, crucifers, chalice bearers, acolytes, or priests. Young torchbearers will light the way for the gospel message as it is carried into our midst.

Others will come forward alone to proclaim the Words of Life as lectors. Others will declare words of hope and comfort as intercessors. We will hurry up and down the aisle passing the Peace to as many as we can in a short span of time. Today I went up and down the aisle to take up our offerings and gifts and present them to the celebrant, who then offered them up to God.

Presenters will bring the holy gifts of the creatures of bread and wine to the communion table. There we become one body because we share one bread and one cup. All of us will join together and walk across those old floor boards to corporately acknowledge our faith and trust in the Father Almighty. In sharing the sacrament of the Eucharist, we join the millions who have gone before us and those who are yet unborn.

Young children, youth, perhaps even some spouses feel compelled to be in the sanctuary, to make the journey to the altar. Even as the paralytic was let down through the roof and the faith of those who brought him was honored, the faith of those who bring their sometimes resistant children, youth, and spouses will be honored.

Perhaps some of the hardest journeys down the aisle are made by individuals facing dark nights of the soul. They quietly slip into the sanctuary when no one is around and nearly crawl down to the altar for consolation and perhaps a glimmer of hope. Many times over the years I have made these secret journeys down the aisle to the altar. I have the good fortune of having a key to the kingdom. Dark nights don’t schedule themselves for convenience or church opening hours.

Some of us are wheeled down the aisle in our coffins, covered with a satin burial shroud. Unwillingly, perhaps, we make our last journey to the altar we so willingly visited throughout our lives. Even so, we participate in a journey that gives hope to those we have left behind. We are then wheeled back up the aisle to another place of repose. A number of us are carried forward in small urns or carve boxes for internment in the memorial garden. Last communion is shared in our presence by those who have come to say their farewells to us.

The scriptures tell us that broad is the way that leads to destruction and narrow is the way that leads to the Kingdom of God. Much debate rages about the exclusivity of the Christian message and just what are the ways one can get to Heaven. I am not sure myself about much of this debate, but what I am sure of is that by going down the center aisle of our church for any of the various reasons we do so, we will better for it. We celebrate, grieve, worship, and explore life and faith together. Going down the center aisle doesn’t buy a ticket to heaven but I suspect the intentionality that goes with making our journeys forward will make it easier to find a ticket to eternal life and a place in His Kingdom. In the meantime we can feel like we are drawing closer to God and to each other by making this journey often, and for a variety of reasons. We always end up at the memorial of His Redemption.

I gain some real comfort from knowing that my feet have traversed that aisle hundreds of times for a variety of reasons and that I have helped wear the varnish of those oak boards down to a comfortable semi-gloss finish.