I’m flying home from Flagler, Colorado, where I was privileged to preach for the dedication of a new bell tower at Zion Lutheran Church.
The first church I served had three bells in its old steeple. St. Salvator in Venedy, Illinois was built in 1865, legend telling it was built with the help of freed slaves. On Sundays when it was time for the service to begin, Roy and Earl would ring the bells, but one Sunday something sounded wrong. One of the old bells had developed a crack; it sounded like striking a pie plate. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1). Hence the question: Does your life ring true to the love of God? We’re living in a time when it takes more than ringing the bell to bring people to church.
The cracked bell was a crisis in little Venedy, a town of about 125 people. The men gathered together. “Maybe Bill could weld it,” said one, but when we finally got an expert – you knew he was an expert because he came from another state, Missouri – who told us it couldn’t be repaired. Either melt it down and recast it or buy a new one. That’s a picture of Christian life. When the Bible teaches you were born again by baptism, it doesn’t mean that your sinful nature stayed intact and a fault or two forgiven, as if the bell stayed intact and the crack welded. No, new birth comes out of death to sin and birth to new life. “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Cast by your Creator but not fulfilling His will because of your sinful nature, God’s love recast you by baptism and faith to the “more excellent way” of love. “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).
The congregation bought a new bell and it rings true still today. The old bell was put on display in the cemetery. “One who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (Romans 6:7-8). Does your life ring true to God’s love?
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