When our church was invaded

“Sunday is the best day of the week,” we like to say.

In the highest and holiest rhythm of our lives, our church, like countless others around the world, gathers on Sunday mornings to worship Jesus. We come as the burdened who need rest, the mourning who long for comfort, and the weak who desire strength. Knowing we are sinners desperate for a Savior, during this highest and holiest rhythm, at its highest and holiest point, we open the Holy Scriptures to hear from God.

But on Jan. 18, just as I was about to read from John 13 on Jesus’s command to love one another, a woman interrupted me. She was walking towards me, down a side aisle, others following behind her. She yelled out across the quiet of our congregation, claiming she had come to bring judgment. I told her right away she was interfering with our worship, but as soon as I began to speak, several individuals scattered throughout the sanctuary rose together and, like a flash mob, converged with chants and clenched fists. The first wave of worshipers fled immediately, and within seconds, the mob began shouting, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!”

Others in our congregation fled, fearing it was an active shooter situation. Many took cover in a nearby room. Children who remained in the sanctuary put up their hands. Trying to make sense of the chaos, I turned to the woman who had initiated the disruption and rebuked her. “Shame” is still the best word I have for that moment. They had stormed into the house of God, a place of peace and refuge, and they defiled it with rage.

And it only intensified.

The woman accused us of “harboring” a federal agent connected with Immigration & Customs Enforcement. The word struck me as strange. Over the years, several law-enforcement officers have been part of our church, and they’ve all been godly men and faithful public servants. We are grateful for them, and we pray that everyone would love God and neighbor as they do. This must be a misunderstanding, I thought.

But the agitators grew louder. Their numbers seemed to swell as they crowded into the middle of our sanctuary, blocking the path from the north side of our building to our childcare wing. The pandemonium of that moment is hard to describe—the space between words defies what it was like. And then one of them stuck a recording device in my face and asked me what I thought of the desecration unfolding before my eyes. Other cameras immediately joined in. Individuals closed in around me, cutting off my view of my congregation. I didn’t know where my wife had taken our children. As I tried, calmly, to leave the ambush, the interviewer warned me not to push him. I did not push him.

In that instant, I interpreted what was going on: this was about provocation, intimidation, and spectacle. They were here to incite violence. The spiritual dimension of it all came into focus. A malevolent darkness was behind this—the same darkness behind the murder of pre-born children, and the mutilation of children’s bodies, and the manipulation of children’s minds. Those were all evils our children had escaped, so now the weapon was terror. The agitators screamed in our faces and said we weren’t a real church. They harassed individuals for their ethnicity and “uttered all kinds of evil” against us falsely. They spewed lies upon lies, and our refusal to retaliate seemed only to frustrate them.

The man questioning me certainly seemed disappointed. I told him, plainly, that we had gathered to worship Jesus and that he should leave. He did not leave. He was in on the terror.

He continued to accost members of our congregation, eventually moving outdoors, but still on our property. Once we had evacuated the building, the mob’s vitriol turned into gloating and they celebrated, “Who shut this down? We shut this down!” They repeated it again and again as they lined up in the middle of our emptied sanctuary, fists raised, posing for a picture.

I stepped back and watched, remembering the words of Jesus in Matthew 16, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His church. Hell had barged into our local church that morning, boasting to have shut us down, but hell doesn’t have the final say. Nobody does, except God alone.

Peter, who first heard Jesus speak of the church, later wrote, “When [Jesus] was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). In His own persecution, Jesus remained silent, not because He lacked truth to speak, but because He had yielded His vindication to the Father. Our church had followed in Jesus’s steps, and we continue, by His grace, to entrust our souls “to a faithful Creator while doing good” (1 Peter 4:19).

And that was the miracle of Jan. 18—the miracle that triumphed over the madness. We were insulted for the name of Christ, yet the insults fell on us as blessings, because the Spirit of glory rests upon us. Jesus Himself said, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:12). This joy, deeper than the universe, is our story. And it’s a joy that opens wide its arms to our cities, even to those who raised their fists against us.

God willing, they will answer for what they have done in a court of earthly justice. But if they turn from their sins and trust in Christ, they need not fear the court of heaven. All of their sins can be wiped away.

Jesus is real. He is the hope of the world.

Just the week before Jan. 18, during an icebreaker at a staff meeting, we each went around and shared our favorite congregational song. I chose “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us”—a hymn I’ve cherished for years. And providentially, as the last agitators filed out of our emptied sanctuary that Sunday, that very song played over the speaker. I stood there, taking in the wreckage, and the third stanza spoke for me from within the shock.

Why should I gain from his reward? I cannot give an answer

But this I know with all my heart: his wounds have paid my ransom

Paid my ransom. Enough for me. Enough for our church. Enough for anyone who turns from their sin and trusts in Jesus.

To whosoever will, believe in the Lord Jesus, and be saved.