A serious earthquake like the one in Ridgecrest, California the other day is a stark reminder that we are not, ultimately, in control. The church of Philadelphia knew how this went – the city had been destroyed by an earthquake, about 80 years earlier. The congregation there lived in an unstable world in more ways than one.
Jesus opens again with a description of himself, though this time he does not refer explicitly back to the earlier description. Instead, it is a direct reference to Isaiah 22:22, when Isaiah condemns Shebna, the steward of king Hezekiah. It is a clear reference to the deity of Christ, but also an introduction to the concept of the door, which Jesus goes on to expand upon.
He has given them an open door “which no one can shut.” This picture of a door is used across the New Testament as both the door to the Kingdom of Heaven and as a door of opportunity for good works.
The Philadelphians were struggling with the local synagogues, who were expelling the Christians, shutting the doors on them. But Jesus opens a more important door, the door to God’s kingdom.
Like the church at Smyrna, this church receives no censure. Both of these churches were explicitly weak and powerless in the secular world. Like Paul, their weakness kept them from becoming conceited. Paul asked three times for his weakness to be taken away, but once he accepted it, he thanked God for his weakness, because it was a way for Christ to demonstrate His strength.
This is what the Church in Philadelphia was living. The large, strong, growing churches among the seven churches were those with the most spiritual failures.
But Christ promises that the persecutors would ultimately see the truth of His love, and that He would protect the church in the midst of the coming adversity.
Jesus then promises that He is “coming soon.” It has not felt soon, but as Peter noted, “a thousand years is like a day” to the Lord. Regardless of how or when or in what form that eventually takes, we are called to be ready: to endure and to hold fast.
And in this city of earthquakes and instability, Christ will make them a pillar, with the names of the Father, the Son and the City of God engraved on it. What names are carved on us now?
If you go to Philadelphia today, all that is left of the city, appropriately, are three pillars of the Basilica of St. John. The region around the city was a site of wars and conquest for centuries. Eventually, it was all conquered by Islamic forces, but the church of Philadelphia, with “but little power,” lasted longest, into the 12th century as a formal body.
The endurance and persistence of the Philadelphian church is something for us to aspire to, and something we have seen in our history.
Jesus wants faith, not strength.
– Sermon Notes, Mahlon Friesen, Seed Church, Lynnwood, WA, July 7, 2019