Have you ever wondered why church buildings have spires or steeples topped by crosses? A usual explanation is that the intention of the cross-topped steeple is to point to the Way to Heaven architecturally. Some think that many different religious structures have had significant vertical elements going back centuries. Such significant vertical elements may help people locate the religious structure, especially if the tower has a lantern, or the steeple might otherwise serve as a landmark, even as the tower might house a bell (or bells) used to help keep time and call people to worship, the belfry’s height helping amplify the sound above other structures. Steeples may direct one’s gaze upward, where not only “heaven” as the sky but also “Heaven” as the place where God dwells is thought to be, and so steeples may lead to religious contemplation or may symbolize the worshipers’ prayers’ ascending to Heaven. Christian church buildings are obviously more likely to have those significant vertical elements topped by crosses, and that has more to do with Who died on the cross, those in the church building’s worshiping Him, and how He is the Way to Heaven.

In John 14:6, Jesus tells His disciples that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, that no one comes to the Father except through Him, and, we might add, they come to the Father through Him by the power of the Holy Spirit. Similarly, in Acts 4:12, St. Peter told the Sanhedrin that there is salvation only in Jesus, that there is no other Name other than His under Heaven given among people by which it is Divinely necessary for us to be saved. So, Jesus is not One of many different ways, but Jesus is the One and Only Way.

Genesis 11:1-9 tells how people who settled in the land of Shinar once tried to build themselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, but the Lord confused their language, and so they left off building the city. Those people of Babel’s inability in the end to reach heaven on their own is a good reminder of our sin and inability to have a right relationship with God on our own. We need God to make right our relationship with Him, and He does that objectively through Jesus’s death on the cross for all people, which reconciliation those receive subjectively who repent and believe in Jesus.

Yet, not even all so-called “Christian” denominations believe, teach, and confess the same Jesus and the same ways that He works to give sinners the salvation that He won for them. For example, some denominations believe that Jesus did not do enough on the cross, that you by doing good works have to get yourself the rest of the way to Heaven. Other denominations teach that Jesus died to save only some people but not all people. However, Lutherans confess that Jesus did all that is necessary for all people. Similarly, some denominations believe that Jesus does not actually save you when you are baptized. Other denominations teach that, because He is not fully God, Jesus cannot be really, physically present with His Body and Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar. Lutherans confess that Baptism, Absolution, and the Sacrament of the Altar are true Means of Grace by which God works to create and sustain faith.

There’s obviously a lot more to pointing to the Way to Heaven than topping a steeple with a cross, and, at Pilgrim Lutheran Church we do not shy away from believing, teaching, and confessing the full truth of God’s law that condemns our sin and His Gospel that saves us from our sin. We invite you to explore this website and welcome you to use the contact information at right to find out more.

The banner graphic at the top of this page and the corresponding slider image on the front page were composed by Katy Myers using a picture of the steeple of Pilgrim Lutheran Church, Kilgore, Texas, taken on March 19, 2023.