Rainy long lines outside a church must spell passion among the faithful…
Actually, we were tourists waiting to get into Venice’s famed San Marco cathedral. With estimates running between a not-a-typo 40 to 120 million individual mosaic tiles lining the edifice, it’s understandable that soggy shoes and a sniffly nose would be a small price to pay for such indescribable beauty.
However, that same church saw only a handful for a Sunday service on rainy days or sunny ones in Venice or anywhere.
The “beauty” of religion - whether in physical buildings, inspiring worship services or pulpit power - may well attract many.
While church attendance is not necessarily an indicator of a committed Christian, this metaphor-du-jour serves to remind us about what Jesus said of wide and narrow roads.
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Religion can be attractive. Whether it’s a “Get-Out-of-Hell” card or a slippery-slope grace-or-works theology or u-name-it, the Jesus of these tiles wants to paint a portrait with our lives that is made of a mosaic of millions of decisions for Him.
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7:13,14