[The Sardis to which Jesus writes this famous letter in the book of Revelation was not a large city, but it was rich and prosperous. It was the capital of the Lydian empire whose last king was Croesus. On its site, a pile of rubble now proclaims its former glory. Among the ruins is a miserable hamlet of tiny huts called Sart. A Christian traveller who once passed by found two Christian men among the otherwise entirely Muslim population. So much was the judgment on the church there fulfilled: "If you are not careful, I will come to you like a thief...!" Jesus' warning was in vain, they did not watch out, they did not return! They did not listen to what the Spirit was saying to the church. As if the whole fate of the church in Sardis was an illustration of this statement of Jesus: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away!" Perhaps the tragedy of the whole town was turned around by the fact that there was no one in the Christian congregation who really took the Spirit's word seriously. So much depends on the congregation hearing what God is saying to them. Will we now understand what Jesus is saying to us through this Word?"Thy name is called, that thou mayest live..." From this statement, from this characterization, it seems that the church in Sardis was living in an externally orderly way, it did not have the divisions of Corinth, it did not have camps, cliques, parties, at least not in the letter. The purity and power of the Gospel were not endangered by all kinds of heresies, as in Colosse, no sects were rampant among them, and the church had a good name throughout the land. It was a respectable congregation, it could live in peace, its members were not persecuted. But perhaps it was precisely this great calm that was their problem, in this great calm they fell asleep to such an extent that Jesus was forced to say to them, "You are dead!" A noncombatant state of rest is never beneficial to the Christian church. The Christian life is not a state of rest, but a heroic way of life, unfolding in its fullness where the daily struggle for Christ must be taken up! The Christian life is a constant front, a front where there is never a cease-fire, where there is no rest, no slumber, no sleep, where sleep means death. You cannot sit still! The place of Christianity on this earth is under the cross, and the temptation of the supreme rest is for it to fall, to lose its fervour of faith, to be content to live quietly the colourless life of a consolidated, tradition-keeping community. I see this in my own individual Christian life: I am at my weakest spiritually, at my weakest state, when I am at liberty, and I think I am not compelled to struggle for the souls of others, to comfort them, to deliver them from sin, to feed them with the Word - that is, when I am not in service, not burdened with the weight of duty and responsibility for the kingdom of God. So it is with the whole Christian church, or congregation: when it has nothing to strive for, nothing to sacrifice, nothing to fight for, nothing to serve, because it has everything, because everything is so well ordered, then it loses the power of its word, then it sinks into a respectable association, a little band of flock of summer bourgeois who are content with themselves and their petty piety.
Well, that's the sort of illusion that must have been going on in Sardis. From the outside, it seemed to be alive and well, but all this only masked a slow dwindling of the vitality within. That's why Jesus covers up the appearance: "I know thy works, that thou art alive, and art dead." Jesus once said this to the church in Sardis! What about us, in our church in Pasareti, the so-called canonica visitatio, the canonical visitation, which resulted in the committee finding that both the material and the spiritual things in this church were in exemplary good order? Well, if only Jesus would hold a canonica visitatio? Would he not tell us something like he has told the Sardinians here? Something like this: "it is your name that you live and you are dead!" Because our church also has a good name, it has a good name, its name is that it lives! That we have a living church here! But brethren, let us beware, for not all life is what it seems! We are willing to take a very human view of the vitality of the Church. For example, we measure the vitality of the church by its material strength. And we say: a church is strong if it is made up of wealthy people. Well, a rich church can be dead and a beggar church can be alive. The church of Christ was strongest when the apostles Paul and Peter walked the country roads in barefoot sandals, and when the faithful came together to worship God in catacombs and private homes instead of huge, gleaming cathedrals. Or it is tempting, for example, to measure the Church's vitality by its power in public life, its voice in secular politics. Well, we have learned from history that the Church is not strong when kings are forced to canonise her, nor is she weak when measured by the number of believers. It is a joy to see a crowd, but a crowd is not necessarily a sign of life. On Palm Sunday, too, crowds of people were hallelujahing in honour of Jesus in the streets of Jerusalem. Even today the church can have dead crowds. Let not the big numbers deceive you: there are not as many of us as we keep records of. Only the Lord knows his own!
So, to a congregation that fills a church to overflowing, gives generously, loves to hear the Word and sings psalms fervently, Jesus can say, "Your name is your living and your name is your dead." In fact, only Jesus can say that. This is such a serious statement, such a deadly serious statement, that it is not an exaggeration, it only makes sense if Jesus himself says it. And does he? To us too? Let each one decide for himself, not for the other; are you personally really alive, or is it just your name that you are alive, but in reality you are dead? And here, life does not mean that one exists, speaks, moves, acts, breathes, eats, drinks, but that one knows why one is alive, what the meaning of existing, speaking, moving, acting, breathing, eating, drinking is. So this life here means a higher order, a different quality of life. In short and simply, the life that Jesus once said, "I am life! So, the person who lives truly, in the biblical sense of the word, is the one who lives with Jesus, who lives in Jesus, who lives by Jesus, who lives in the power and guidance of the Spirit of Jesus, who lives for Jesus, or, more simply, who lives in Jesus. The one who lives is the one whose mouth is spoken by Jesus, whose hand is helped by Jesus, whose heart is loved by Jesus, whose money is managed by Jesus, who, even if he dies, lives! The person who lives is the one in whom eternal life has begun by receiving Jesus. If Jesus does not live in a person, he is dead even if he moves fast, talks a lot, does great things. That is why Jesus says: "It is your name that you live, and you are dead!" In such a dead person, as Jesus says here, it is possible to practise the externals of religiousness in such a dead person. It is possible to go to church, to give, to listen to the Word, to pray, when dead. Do you know the difference between living prayer and dead prayer? It's that living prayer is a divine action, a divine action, a divine power becomes manifest. For example, a sick person is healed, or a prison door is opened, like Peter's was, or a problem is solved. So something happens in which the power of God becomes evident. And in dead prayer there is no such power, only words...
There is living and dead ministry. In the one the fire of the Holy Spirit burns, in the other the flame of human ambition blazes. In the one there is revival, in the other there is bankruptcy. The one, the living ministry: revives, the other, the dead ministry: exhausts. There is living faith and dead faith. The one, the living faith: always conquering new souls for Jesus, by his light sinners find grace. The other, dead faith: always groaning at its own helplessness. I said: let each man decide for himself whether Jesus does not say to him, "I know thy works, that thy name is thine, that thou art alive, and art dead" ?
It is unpleasant to hear such a harsh word, because one can never get out from under it. But Jesus does not make this grave diagnosis in order to make you despair, but to give you life. It is not yet a state of eternal death, it is possible to awaken from it. Hence the great call: beware! Precisely because Jesus speaks so strongly, it shows that he has not given up even such illusory life, even such death. He shakes us like a sleeper in a burning house, he cries out to us: Beware! Wake up, there is danger, eternal death!
"Strengthen others who are dying." A strange command. How can I strengthen those who are dying when I myself am dead? But that's how it should be done! It is precisely for this reason that you strengthen others who are dying, so that you yourself may be strengthened again and rise again to new life. Let those whose faith is weak turn to those whose faith is weaker and strengthen them. He who is sad, let him seek out those who are sadder than he and comfort them. Those who have lost their zeal, try to wake other sleepers. Those who are weary in the Christian life or in the struggle against their sins, help others to fight and win. Whoever has a cold heart, try to revive a soul even more faint-hearted than you. Whoever is lost in a foreign land, take someone by the hand and lead them home. If you're overwhelmed by your own burden, take on someone else's. Such is the strange law of survival, of awakening!
If a Christian man does not strengthen his environment, he is a dead Christian! If a Christian man is no moral strengthening where he is, he is dead! We only live a life of Christ when we are also living a life of Christ to others. "Strengthen them that are dead." That is, those who are in need of strengthening in any way because they are weak in their faith, or in their moral conduct, or in their material circumstances, or in their married life, or in any other respect. And there are plenty of them, aren't there, perhaps right at home in your family or among your friends. Try to strengthen those who are dying, you will live yourself, because you will be forced to keep running to the Source of Life for life yourself. He who wants to take Christ, to give Christ, is forced to take Christ again and again!
"He that overcometh shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father and before His angels." (v. 5) That is, he who, overcoming the deadly temptations of spiritual sleep, will consent to the confirmation of those who are about to die, "shall put on white raiment," that is, he shall stand before God in the purity of the forgiveness of sins, and be absolutely certain that his name shall never be blotted out of the Book of Life. In other words, he who has ears to hear what the Spirit is now saying to the church through this Word, if he was dead, has now passed from death to life!
Let us therefore cry out together to one another:
Awake, witnessing Spirit!
Let the walls of the castle be guarded,
Who speak boldly and are ready for battle,
When night falls or the sun rises.
Let their call ring far and wide,
Gathering to the Lord an army of nations!
(Canto 396, verse 1)
Amen
Date: 25 June 1959.