Upon the shattering of the illusions, we become disorientated as we step out of the darkness and into the light. We ask ourselves, "How do we get there from here - from godlessness to paradise?" At this point, the Church steps in again. It puts down the sledgehammer and takes up the map. It announces that it has the map and knows the way. To rescue us from godlessness and restore us to paradise, God built an escape route from godlessness to paradise, defined it with holy places, made a map of them, established a Church, entrusted the map to the Church and gave the Church the mission of facilitating the escape - not frustrating it, not filtering it and not fouling it up. The Church was put in charge of the logistics of the escape - of the new exodus through the hostile desert of godlessness from slavery under the yoke of Pharaoh to freedom with God and his holy family in the promised land. The Church is supposed to be the grease for the wheels of the escape and not an obstacle in its way. If the Church gets in the way of the escape, we go around it, over it, under it and through it. Only by passing from holy place to holy place that define the escape route can we be sure that we are heading in the right direction. The escape is the needle of the compass that always points in the direction of paradise. The escape from godlessness to paradise is primary. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect (Matthew 23:13) (Matthew 23:24) (Matthew 6:33).
But we are getting ahead of ourselves.