Stability and Strength

In the first book of Kings, we read that when Solomon was building the Temple in Jerusalem, he had two bronze pillars erected at the entrance.  The pillar on the right was named Jachin, which means "stability."  On the left, the pillar was called Boaz, which means "power." (I Kings 7:21). 

A twelfth-century monk named Aelred of Rievaulx pointed out that Jesus also erected two "pillars" at the entrance of His church: Peter (stability) and Paul (power or strength).  Thus, the church of Jesus Christ is built on a firm foundation, not shaken at its core.  In fact, when the charismatic movement was at its strongest in the 70's and 80's, my pastor in Kenner preached a remarkable sermon wherein he said that we need the church at Rome (stability) as well as the church at Ephesus (power, charisma).  Without both pillars, the church faces the situation of becoming either stale in its stability or unhinged in its power.  And indeed, any armchair historian has seen the church go through both phases before eventually being corrected by the power of the Holy Spirit operating in His saints.

In thinking about the beauty of the church balancing itself over the years through the stability of Peter and the charisma of Paul, it occurred to me that Peter was not always "stable" nor Paul "charismatic."  It took the traumatic "shaking" of both men at the core of their personalities and the filling of the Holy Spirit to make them into the "pillars of the church" that we recognize today.  Peter's denial of Christ must have been a shock to the very center of his being after he had just told the Lord (Jn. 13) that he would lay down his life for Him.  And Paul, so sure in the center of his heart that the followers of the The Way were heretical Jews betraying the faith of Abraham, had to be knocked to the ground by his encounter with the risen Lord.

Indeed, as Pope Francis recently pointed out in his general audience of June 10, God wants to change all of us as He changed Jacob when he wrestled with the Lord to obtain a blessing and a "new name -- Israel."  "This is a beautiful invitation," the Pope said, "to let ourselves be changed by God....we are only poor men and women, [but] God has a blessing reserved for those who have let themselves be changed by Him."

The change God wants to make in us, it seems to me, is to make us into Temples of His Living Presence like the Temple in Jerusalem and like the church first established at Rome and in Ephesus.  In order to do that, He must build into us "stability and strength/power."  For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, says Paul to Timothy (2 Tim. I:7), but a spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind (or self-discipline).

You shall receive power -- the Greek word used here in the Acts of the Apostles is our root word for dynamite---when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, Jesus tells the apostles, and if you obey My words, you shall be like a house built on a firm foundation (rock)....when the wind and rains come, you shall not fail (Matt. 7).

Stability, Power, and Strength -- these are the Pillars of the Church, and these are the pillars that God wants to build into our personalities as temples of the Living God.  Pope Francis tells us that God wants to change us as He did Jacob, and wants to give us a "new name" -- no longer cheater, grabber, usurper, but (Jacob) rather, One who has prevailed with God and with men, (Israel).