We watched her burn—together. We watched her burn in silence.
The fire that swept through Notre Dame Cathedral was one of those great tragedies in human history that you cannot not see. It devastated not merely a church nor even a city. But it cast a pall over all of Western Civilization.
Where were you when you watched it burn?
I was in Boston. It was the Ides of April. The Boston Marathon is always run on the third Monday in April — Patriots’ Day — an annual commemoration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. At the start, it was glorious, sunny and a little bit muggy. At the finish, a chill rain kept exhausted finishers huddled in mylar blankets.
But, back at the hotel, all that seemed like a distant memory as the screen in the lobby portrayed the conflagration unfolding against the skyline of Paris. A forest of timber trusses that had supported the roof for 840 years was a mass of orange and black flame.
This ancient oak had witnessed a million Masses. The boxed heart oak timbers had seen the coronations of Henry the VI of England in 1431 and Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.
In 1793 they silently watched as the French revolutionaries stole the cathedral from God and turned it into a pagan shrine. Scantily clad dancing girls replaced veneration of the Virgin Mary. The Cult of Human Reason is celebrated by sexual license.
That orgy of bloodshed soon burned itself out. But the flames of five years ago devoured the trusses, and the memories they held. When the great spire toppled into the flames, it felt final.
As knots of visitors watched the screen in our hotel’s lobby, mouths remained silent while minds turned over private thoughts. My mind kept asking: are we even capable of rebuilding such magnificence? Or are we watching the end of an era?
That era didn’t begin with the construction of Notre Dame. The building that took more than a century to erect (1163-1270) did not usher in the era. Our Lady of Paris is, rather, a monument to the event that ushered in the Christian Era (C.E.).
“O that birth, forever blessed, when the Virgin full of grace, by the Holy Ghost conceiving, bore the Savior of our race.” This poem of Aurelius Prudentius had been intoned for 750 years before the cornerstone of Notre Dame was laid. The same words have echoed within her for the eight centuries since.
Upon further reflection, I need not have worried that the Christian Era was coming to an end. That’s not going to happen. Many tyrants far more vicious than the ruthless Robespierre have spectacularly failed in the attempt.
Hitler hijacked the German Church and murdered millions before it was rebuilt. Stalin snuffed out 100 million lives and shut down churches for six decades before his empire collapsed and the Church reappeared. Mao’s Great Leap Forward has been waging war against Christ for more than six decades in China. But the Church continues to thrive.
The real question is not whether the era of Christ will be supplanted by some new and godless alternative. The only question is whether the King of kings and Lord of lords will rule in enough individual hearts to keep the flames of hell from devouring this or that city, state, or nation. And, whether the kings of the world will be wise enough to seek the Prince of peace.
As it turns out, God was not yet finished with Paris either. Despite plenty of reason to abandon Western Christendom to its well-deserved fate, God graciously provided for the rebuilding and reopening of the iconic cathedral.
On Dec. 7, dignitaries from around the world gathered to celebrate its reopening. Reconstruction has cost $737 million. All of that, and more, had been pledged within 10 days of the fire.
Notre Dame’s reopening is a visible sign that the Prince of Peace has not abandoned us for our many sins. The Word of God still has free course. It is preached and available throughout the Christian West. We should not take that for granted.
It is not openly available in communist China or in many countries of the Middle East, And our world is better for the worship of Christ.
At Notre Dame’s reopening ceremonies, the choir sang, “How joyful it was when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ Now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem! Jerusalem, built as a city, that is bound firmly together” (Psalm 121).
Let us receive the One who has come to save our fallen race by going to the House of the Lord. There the One who brings peace on earth and goodwill to men will change your heart, And, with it, the world.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com
