Am I the Anti-Luther? Thoughts from St. Peter's Basilica

While in Rome I visited St. Peter’s Basilica, by far the biggest and fanciest church building I’ve ever witnessed. Everything about it shouts distance and transcendence. The ceilings are unbelievably high. The materials are singularly luxurious. Not one common stone makes up its walls or floors. And there is no empty space devoid of meaning. World-famous sculptures like the Pietá are in one little wing off the main corridor, while St. John Chrysostom’s bones are supposedly encased in another little cove. So much of it is behind velvet ropes and occasionally closed curtains. You can definitely look but don’t touch. And above all, keep your distance. Of course, at St. Peter’s that’s pretty easy to do.

St. Peter’s Basilica is famous because of its construction, or rather the creative ways the church tried to fund its construction, which helped spark the European Reformation. Martin Luther continually struggled with whether or not there was a merciful God. He knew all about God’s transcendence. He’d even visited Rome on one occasion, although St. Peter’s Basilica had barely broken ground at the time. The setup of the church in his day was that God was above and beyond all. He was nearly inaccessible to everyone outside of the Mass, and even then the Eucharist was only partially accessible at the time with the cup being withheld from the laity. 

Luther knew well his own sins. Unfortunately, his theological teachers failed to encourage him with their message that when one does all they can, God accepts it. Luther constantly worried about whether or not he really was doing all he can, especially in front of such a distant, transcendent God. His big question was if he could find such a God to be merciful.

It is safe to say that I’ll never enter a more transcendent church building than St. Peter’s Basilica, and I am not sure I’d want to regularly worship there. But it does serve to contrast well the spaces in which I have worshiped. 

Over the years, I’ve worshipped in many churches. Some had admittedly beautiful, but mostly bare, sanctuaries, while others rented out a movie theater and put in a couple of fake trees as decor. There is often intimacy in these spaces that present an accessible, immanent God. You are told to come as you and even bring with you your hot beverage from the lobby outside.

In thinking of the contrast between a place of worship like St. Peter’s Basilica and the places of worship I have been in most of my life, I wonder if I need more reminders of God’s transcendence in my life. In other words, might I have the opposite problem Martin Luther did? I know full well there is a merciful God, but do I realize just how big he really is?

This semester I’m teaching Systematic Theology 2.  We are focusing on the doctrines of Christ, Spirit, salvation, and last things (there’s a separate class on the doctrine of the church). Just a few weeks into the semester I’ve stumbled upon a subconscious theme in my lectures and class activities, which is the word “bigger.” 

The Incarnation is a bigger deal than we often imagine it to be. The Atonement that Christ secured for us sinful humans is bigger than a single excruciating afternoon at Golgotha. And the salvation God provides is bigger than praying a prayer that asks Jesus into one’s heart. 

If I can build on what Corrie Ten Boom says about God’s love, there is no idea of God so high, that his transcendence is not higher still.

Now I’m not pining for our churches to go back to focusing exclusively on transcendence, and, even worse, giving the message to our people that God is cold and distant. But it’s good to be reminded of just how much bigger God is than I can ever imagine him to be. And I don’t need to go back to St. Peter’s Basilica for that. 

All I need to do is go outside where the heavens declare God’s glory. And turn to the Holy Scriptures and be reminded that the Creator of the universe made everything to be his temple. Or better yet reflect on this the next time I am holding the elements before taking the Lord’s Supper. 

The impossible mystery of God is that he is bigger than anything we imagine and yet he has taken on our humanity and dwelled among us. He is able to nourish us from the inside out, symbolized by the bread and cup that is so small it can even fit in my hands when I take the Lord's Supper. And yet, like the beauty of the lilies of the field, not even entering St. Peter’s Basilica and all its splendor is as wonderful as taking the bread and the cup.

And in these things and more, is where we can find both a merciful and transcendent God. 

Thanks be to him!