Trinity Baptist Church in Lawton burned a few days ago. It made me sad.
My friend Shari reminded me that First Baptist Church here also burned back when we were in high school. Bobby Pittman and I skipped fifth hour to go downtown to see it. I didn't have much of a connection with FBC, so I don't recall that it had a lot of profound impact on me when it burned, other than it was kind of exciting to a couple of 17-year-old boys.
But the fire at Trinity really did make me sad. It is not my home church, but I have connections there. My friend Kevin and his family were long-time members. My wife Dana and I attended there when we were first married. Dana was baptized there. Brother Andy from Trinity married us. And my Mom reminded me the other day my Dad was also baptized there when they were first married. Also, Trinity has been a part of the Lawton landscape for as long as I can remember. It has always just been there on West Gore Blvd. as I zipped by, going to work, or to the Y, or wherever. It was just a familiar sight, part of my hometown and my past, something I didn't really think about too much. And now it is gutted by fire and will likely be razed so a new building can be built.
I guess this is disturbing because it was so unexpected. Without really thinking about it, I guess I just assumed that Trinity would always be there, just sitting there on Gore Blvd., where I expected it be, just like it always had been, as I zipped by. But I was wrong.
I told my friend that churches burning are a stark metaphor. (Both of us were English majors.) A burning church reminds me that things in this life are not as permanent as we might think they are. It reminds me of my own mortality. It says that the places and things in this world that we hold dear will not last forever.
But, as the pastor of Trinity said after the fire, the church does not consist of just the building, but of the people of the church. Likewise, our lives do not consist of just the temporal, familiar things we see around us, but in the hope we have in the One who established the Church.
The Apostle Paul wrote, "We have this treasure in jars of clay...." The fire at Trinity reminded me that I am a jar of clay with a treasure hidden inside.
Realizing that, I know that this life will include the loss of lots of places and people that I hold dear. If I were without hope, this would be more than I could bear, probably.
But Paul also reminds us: "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
Merry Christmas, y'all.
