It has been an exciting and wonderful blessing to visit the city of Geneva. I saw the Auditoire where John Knox preached to English speaking people, and I studied the Reformation Wall behind the University of Geneva. The university started as a school founded by John Calvin, and the wall featured Calvin, Theodore Beze (who succeeded him), Guillaume Farel (who preceded him), and John Knox, the reformer of Scotland. When Dr. Goree and I were there in 1998, Bill checked out the churches where Calvin preached, and I pursued the ones where Bucer preached while he was Calvin’s protégé in Geneva.
Calvin (Jean Cauvin, in French) preached at Saint Pierre (St. Peter’s) church in Geneva which had before been the Catholic cathedral of the city. Like most Catholic Churches converted to Protestant, few changes were made. Usually the altar rail, which separated laity from clergy, was removed to indicate the Protestant doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, as defined by Luther. Often an open Bible was placed on a table there to indicate how the word of God unites us in faith.
I remember in Saint Pierre the chair in which Calvin sat, roped off to prevent visitors from trying it out. Also, in the narthex there was a shop where I was able to buy postcards featuring the various reformers. I have mounted those cards to form a picture, now positioned on my office wall. I record my Sunday school class each week for out of town viewers and our members unable to attend class in person. Those who watch my virtual class have a view of those mounted postcards along with a wooden, cedar cross carved by Howard Salyer, a gift he gave to many in our church.
Somehow, the moment in Saint Pierre that most stands out in my mind was a visit to the chapel, a much smaller room accessed from the main sanctuary. Here I sat (not stood) and looked at the wall where I could see the somewhat faded letters that were painted there during Calvin’s time and had been preserved through the years. The words read: Post Tenebras Lux (after the darkness light), a motto of the Reformation.
The darkness referred to the traditions, superstitions, meritorious good works, laborious tasks laid on people, corrupt and tyrannical hierarchy, perversion of doctrine and other practices that developed over the centuries and resulted in the Roman Catholic Church of the sixteenth century, the Church that was the object of the Reformers efforts. That darkness was the particular target of Calvin’s efforts at reform, and he never ceased to point out the discrepancy between Catholic belief and practice and that of the Scriptures.
Out of this church and this city flowed the doctrines of the Reformation until they changed the course of western civilization and gave its recipients the really good news of the gospel.
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