We stand together, or we collapse.

1 Cor 15.45-49
Brothers and sisters:
It is written, The first man, Adam, became a living being,
the last Adam a life-giving spirit.
But the spiritual was not first;
rather the natural and then the spiritual.
The first man was from the earth, earthly;
the second man, from heaven.
As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly,
and as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly.
Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one,
we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.

In northern Ethiopia, there is a complex of 11 Churches called the Lalibela Churches - named for the King who had them built. Uniquely, these churches are carved out of the living stone, rather than built of quarried stone. Bare Ethiopian highland rock opens up suddenly on huge clefts in the rock, where these 11 churches stand. These churches have stood since before the time of St Dominic, so for all their magnificent, monolithic glory they’ve begun to show their age. Modern engineering has had to come in and help hold up some of these enormous buildings. Story goes that as the engineers set to work carving holes for supports, monks came in after them and carefully swept up the dust for safe keeping. The dust was holy to the monks, who hold angels, rather than men built the churches. The monks knew that in this refuse was a little bit of heaven. That the stuff of earth, quite literally dust from stone, had served for 900 years to help render God present to men and women on pilgrimage. These churches illustrate what Paul is getting at – waiting for the resurrection amid the familiar earthly aspects of life, while remembering what we know now will be fulfilled, rather than obliterated in the life to come.

In our life, God also starts with what’s already there – He’s the one who makes it to begin with after all. And in our conversion he will use the material He’s provided. Like the Ethiopians of old, we don’t have to go looking far for the stuff of God’s work. He is already at work in what’s already there. Our build up, our families, our experiences all serve as the living stone out of which Christ wishes to shape us into living churches – places where He dwells in His Spirit and through His work in us.

And this same stone, us, as we are now, will, in some way, be the material of the heavenly image to come. Now, I’m not speaking technically here, so bear with me: but the ‘we’ that we are now, will be in some transformed way the ‘we’ we’ll be, in Glory with Christ. How do we know? Because the disciples recognized Christ after He revealed Himself post resurrection, they could touch the same hands they’d come to know prior to His death. Even see and touch the same wounds they’d seen kill Him. Now reigning in glory, ascended in that same risen Body, Christ points the way for us. The stone out of which we are carved here and now will be perfected, not bulldozed in the resurrection.

And that dust in the Lalibela churches’ restorations points to something else about the relationship between the earthly and heavenly. Namely, that the dust we know so well now amid pain and suffering and sin, has a place in heaven too. Not the pain and sin and misery themselves, but the place those trials are given in our life by God. The monks lovingly kept the dust made by those drills believing it to be work of angels. Well, you and I are the work of Almighty God – how much more precious then is the dust of our earthly image? Rather than monks, what if angels themselves sweep up the dust made by pain and death and suffering now, to use it as incense in Heaven? The stuff of glory hallowing eternity, rather than mere trash or proof of our misery only.

Last note from Lalibela: these ancient churches all stand within walking distance from one another. They were built as a complex to mimic the heavenly Jerusalem in earthly rock. We too stand as living churches of Christ together – each carved for the Rock, our Lord in His Body the Church. And we can only be what we are made to be – little Christs, little rocks of life and love, by remaining in that Body. We stand together, or we collapse. So, if you’re doing good right now and your walls are sturdy, give thanks. You did not make yourself, nor do you hold yourself up. So, praise God. And if you’re not doing great, your ceiling is sagging, and your columns are cracking, ask for help. There’s another ‘little church’ nearby, made of the same Rock as you – put there in your neck of the woods to help you sweep up the dust and wait for heaven’s unveiling. We stand together, waiting together, to be glorified together in the One who led the way from the grime of Calvary to Glory at the Father’s Right Hand.