Surrounded by Witnesses

In 1845, a group of Christians gathered in a rural area of Pennsylvania and formed a Lutheran congregation. Eventually, a church building was erected outside the town of Wexford. The faithful people of Trinity Lutheran Church met in this building. They married there, they baptized their babies there, they served the Lord faithfully, and they buried their dead in the little graveyard outside the church walls. As the years passed, the number of saints that was added to the graveyard increased, until the church was surrounded by tombstones.

The little congregation grew, and an education building was erected next to the church so the people could teach their children, youth and adults the stories of Jesus. And the church continued to grow. Eventually, the little congregation outgrew their sanctuary. A building committee met to discuss their options. The decision seemed to be an easy one - the most logical thing to do would be to build a new sanctuary and attach it to the education building. There was plenty of land available for this purpose, and it would mean that people would no longer have to walk 100 yards in Pennsylvania winters to get from Sunday school to worship.

But the church was not so quick to embrace this sensible plan. And, in fact, after years of debate, the church members voted instead to undertake a limited expansion of their current sanctuary. This was not a logical choice, but the decision made sense to the church members who wanted to preserve their church’s unique identity of being completely surrounded by its cemetery.

This was not a morbid decision. It was an acknowledgment by the members that their present congregation not only rested on the witness of the saints in Scripture to the grace of God in Jesus the Christ, but also through the witness of all who had contributed their own witness to the faith in the life of their congregation.

You see, no one can enter the church building for worship without walking past the graves of those who served the congregation in the past. And on every Sunday morning, weather permitting, various people from the congregation can be seen standing before tombstones after the service, remembering those whom they have loved, and who have contributed to their own faith.

[adapted from a story told by Ronald Harbaugh in his sermon, "The Faithful are all Saints"]