Let The Walls Come Down

Last week I stood in the food court of the Seattle Center waiting for my sandwich to be prepared. As I walked by one area, a piece of graffitied stone stood beside me, encased on 4 sides with a wooden framework but the edges of the stone showing and left ragged. I thought it was unusual that they brought their graffiti into the building instead of keeping it on the outside. The graffiti was quite unusual, it was bright colored and not laced with gang symbols or gang hieroglyphics but it had a ladder painted on it going toward the top and then peace symbols and other designs that weren’t random but very specifically done. I then noticed a plaque at the side of the stone—this wasn’t any large piece of rock sitting there…it was a piece of the Berlin Wall. I had to touch it and feel the history of it.

Two sides, East and West, uniting and meeting for the first time in 29 years; it was a symbol of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was erected in the night of August 13, 1961.

It was a weekend and most Berliners slept while the East German government begun to close the border. In the early morning of that Sunday most of the first work was done: the border to West Berlin was closed. The East German troups had begun to tear up streets and to install barbed wire entanglement and fences through Berlin.

The first concrete elements and large square blocks were used first on August 15, 1961. Within the next months the first generation of the Berlin Wall was build up: a wall consisting of concrete elements and square blocks.

June 1962 in order to prevent from escaping to the

A second Wall was build in West.

The first Wall was improved during the next years and it’s difficult to distinguish between the first and the second generation of the Wall.

These two first generations were removed by the third generation beginning about 1965. The third generation of Wall consisted of concrete slabs between steel girder and concrete posts with a concrete sewage pipe on top of the Wall.

From the year 1975 the third generation of Wall was replaced by the fourth generation. New concrete segments were used which were easy to build up and were more resistant to breakthroughs and to environmental pollutions.

171 people were killed or died attempting to escape at the Berlin Wall between August 13, 1961 and November 9, 1989.

Walls. They come in all shapes and sizes. They keep things in and they keep things out. They are made of wood, stone, rock and clay. They offer protection and they offer safety.

The walls David speaks of in Psalm 18:2,

“The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;

my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge.

He is my shield and the horn [1] of my salvation, my stronghold “, are the walls of protection. The mighty fortress…the rock that will keep us safe.

But the walls that Jesus speaks of in Mark 13:1,2:As he was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!"

2"Do you see all these great buildings?" replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.", are the walls that keep people out.

We all have our walls and I am not talking literal walls. I am talking about our figurative walls. The walls that keep us safe and keep people out. Nations have them, schools have them and yes, we people have them.

There is a song that was popular Promise Keeper song called Let the Walls Come Down. The song’s theme is that we must come together and let our personal walls fall down, so we can reach out and that Christ can reach in. So often we put up the walls to keep us safe and sheltered but they end up being barricades that keep people away from us; that push people away.

We are often like the Berlin Wall building one layer upon another in the hopes that we will keep ourselves safe. When in reality if we believe in God’s faithfulness; if we believe that He is our Rock and our Salvation, we need not build those walls.

Let us continue in our understanding of Psalm 18.

25 To the faithful you show yourself faithful, to the blameless you show yourself blameless, 26 to the pure you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd. 27 You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. 28 You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. 29 With your help I can advance against a troop ; with my God I can scale a wall. 30 As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.