Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 13:1 (Winter 2004)
Article: Humpty-Dumpty and Some Lessons for the church
Author: Charles H. McGowen

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RAR 13:1 (Winter 2004) p. 105

Humpty-Dumpty and Some
Lessons for the church

Charles H. McGowen, M.D.

Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty together again.

Every child and former child that ever read nursery rhymes knows that the mythological anthropomorphic creature called Humpty-Dumpty was an egg. That unfortunate animated hen’s ovum encountered a catastrophic and “life-shattering” experience when he tried unsuccessfully to perch himself on a wall. Anyone that has ever tried to sit an egg on end knows that borders on the impossible.

In this monograph Humpty-Dumpty is analogous to the Church. That may seem at first glance to be rather impious, but one must also recall that Jesus used many metaphors in describing his Church. Included in that number are a vineyard, sheep, a bride and his own body. In each instance the Lord’s analogy referred to something that was alive. It thus seems fit and proper to use an egg as a metaphor for this living organism called “the Church,” since all living things, at their inception began, in one form or another, as eggs.

RAR 13:1 (Winter 2004) p. 106

The Wall

The rhyme informs us that Humpty-Dumpty was sitting, or at least attempted to sit, on a wall. Walls serve many purposes, one of which is to divide, or separate things. Thomas Jefferson, in responding to the concerns of a group of Baptist preachers regarding the establishment of a state religion in America, used this figure of speech in his famous, yet misunderstood, statement about “a wall of separation between the State and the Church.”

From the moment of its first-century birth, the Church was precariously perched on a wall of separation which our Lord Jesus Christ was determined to destroy. That “wall” represented the distinction between Jewish and Gentile believers. In his letter to the Ephesian Church Paul said,

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit (Ephesians 2:14–18).

In spite of the Lord’s desire for unity however, the early Church continually constructed walls, which needed to be torn dow...

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