Title: Sacred Space
Text: Exodus 3:1-15
Thesis: Sacred space may be anyplace you encounter the presence of God.
Introduction
In The World’s Fastest Indian, Anthony Hopkins plays the part of Burt Munro, a New Zealander who set a number of world speed records in the 1960s riding an old-fashioned, Indian motorcycle built in 1920. The film traces his journey from a tools shed where he worked on his bike for decades to the most sacred place he can think of – salt flats of Utah where speed records are set.
We know the place as the Bonneville Salt Flats along the Utah/Nevada border. It is some 30,000 acres of ancient sea basin. Every winter a thin layer of water covers the basin and every spring and summer the water evaporates leaving a nearly perfectly flat plain. And while there are events throughout the year but mid-August is the time for the Annual Speed Week.
After shipping his Indian to the United States, he trailered it to the Salt Flats where upon arriving he got out of the car, put on his jacket and said, “All my life I’ve wanted to do something big – something bigger and better than all the other jokers. This is it: Bonneville. This is the place where big things happen. Do you realize that the fastest man has ever gone on land is here?” After taking a deep breath, tears well up in his eyes and with a voice filled with emotion, he says, “I’m telling you… this place is holy ground. Holy ground. And I made it here.” (The World’s Fastest Indian (New Zealand Film Commission, 2005, written and directed by Roger Donaldson)
We normally associate pilgrimages as being of spiritual significance but secular pilgrimages are becoming increasingly popular. A secular pilgrimage may take a NASCAR enthusiast to “The Brickyard” in Indianapolis; an Elvis fan to Graceland in Memphis; a baseball fan to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown; an airplane enthusiast to Kitty Hawk in North Carolina; a vet to the Viet Nam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington DC; a patriot to Ground Zero in NYC; a holocaust survivor to Auschwitz; or a country enthusiast to The Grand Ole Opera in Nashville.
You could say that Burt Munro was on something of a secular pilgrimage to Bonneville Salt Flats, the site where man continues to set world land speed records.
However we generally think of pilgrimages as being journeys to a sacred place. Muslims pilgrimage to Mecca; Buddhists pilgrimage to Tibet; Christians pilgrimage to the Holy Land to see what Jesus saw and walk where Jesus walked; Precious Moments people may pilgrimage to the Precious Moments Park and Chapel in Cathage, MO; evangelicals may visit the Billy Graham Museum in Wheaton, IL; Shuler fans trek to the Crystal Cathedral; for others it is the Vatican.
In our story today, God spoke to Moses from a burning bush instructing him to, “Take off your shoes, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” The thing that made that little patch on the far-side of the desert on the Sinai Peninsula holy was that God was there.
A simple way of understanding what is meant by the term “holy ground” is this: Wherever God makes His presence known is a holy place.
A broader understanding of holy is that any place, anything or anyone set apart for God is holy.
Last Sunday I spoke from Romans 12:1 where the bible says, “Therefore, I urge you, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – which is your spiritual act of worship.” When we offer our lives as living sacrifices to God we have set our lives apart, consecrating ourselves to God.
So, what makes a place holy for us?
I. God sometimes shows up at unexpected times and unlikely places.
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Exodus 3:1
A. There are places where we expect to experience the presence of God.
In spirituality there are places known as “thin places.” Thin places are places where people are known to experience or feel the mysterious presence and power of God. In the Old Testament diagram of the Tabernacle Moses built in the wilderness, there was an outer courtyard which led to a tented place called the Holy Place which led to yet another area called the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies was a place designated as the dwelling place of God. The Holy of Holies could only be entered once a year by the High Priest with an offering for the sins of himself and the people. The Holy Place and the Holy of Holies were separated by a veil or a curtain. Hebrews 9:1-9
The veil separated sinful people from a holy God. Josephus, the Jewish historian, estimates that at the time of Christ the veil in the temple was nearly 60 feet high, spanned the width of the temple and was 4 inches thick and that horses tied to each end of it could not pull it apart… so formidable was the curtain that separated God and man in the temple.
Yet in Matthew 27:50-51 the bible says that at the moment Christ died on the cross the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom. And Hebrews 10 teaches us that Christ has opened the way for all to enter the presence of God and experience the grace of God. That is why we have the standing invitation in the bible to come boldly into the presence of God.
I believe that wherever you are God is. But I also believe that there are places where you may be more deliberate in your desire and efforts to position yourself to have an awareness of God’s presence. When I sit down every morning to spend time reading the bible and praying as I begin the day, I have placed myself in a place of grace. When I go on a spiritual retreat for the express purpose of placing myself in the way of grace, I can expect that the solitude and time spent in reading the Word, prayer and reflection will be spiritually beneficial. When I come to church I come expecting to be in the presence of God and to experience the presence of God because this is a place set apart for that very purpose.
When I come into the door I am reminded that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him. When I look up I see the hold of the ark and I am reminded that this place is a place of safety… a sanctuary from the raging storms of life out there. When I see the cross I am reminded that God made a pre-emptive strike in that while we were still sinners Chris died for us. The cross reminds me of the Christ who died for me and the fact that it is an empty cross… that Christ lives and just as Christ is made alive, so am I alive in Christ. The Christ candle burning reminds me of the eternal presence of God. The candle reminds me no matter how dark it may be out there… Christ is the Light of the world. The old bible reminds me that heaven and earth may pass away but God’s Word will never pass away.
Do you get the idea?
Places are set apart for special purposes. When I go over to King Soopers, God may in fact inhabit every aisle, but it’s a grocery store. When I go out to Standley Dental Clinic and I hear the high-pitched drill about to round off a tooth for a new crown, I don’t care how many poofy cloud panels they put in the ceiling, I seldom sense the majesty of God in that moment. And then there are those places that despite our conviction that God is everywhere present… we wonder how God could possibly be present in such places. Certainly those places are not set apart for God’s purposes… in fact, quite to the contrary.
In that compassion may be described as God’s ability to totally identify with our suffering… then God is present in the refugee camps in Somalia. God is present in the dark places of human trafficking; God is present in the cell-blocks and ICUs and ERs and sin-cities. God is present in the aftermath of the hurricane. God is present in the hellish places of war. But no one goes to those places to experience God… one may well experience the presence of God in such places but they are not designated places for God-sightings.
However, when I come here, I expect to be in a place set apart to meet God.
B. There are places where we do not anticipate experiencing the presence of God.
Theologically we know is not an accurate understanding of God. Theologically we believe God to be “omnipresent.” By omnipresent we mean God is everywhere present. If we believe Psalm 139 we know there is not place on the planet (or in the universe for that matter) where God is not.
“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” Psalm 139:7-10
But non-the-less, sometimes when God shows up we are a bit surprised.
In his book The Solace of Fierce Landscapes Belden Lane equates the hard places in our lives with harsh landscapes and he wrote of how many of the biblical encounters with God took place in places of desolation. Being alone in the bleak barrenness of the wilderness was a perfect stage for God to appear and speak.
Typically when we think of the environment as a spiritual landscape we imagine mountaintop to be overwhelmingly places of God’s presence. When we stand atop a mountain and survey majesty that drops off before us from north and south and east and west we marvel at the wonder of God and the works of God. But in the wilderness we are overwhelmed by God’s absence. The mountaintop is a place of awe and the desert is a place of utter dependence.
When Moses took his father-in-law’s sheep to the far side of the desert, the intent was to find grazing for the sheep.
I grew up in Iowa where there was plenty of rain and grazing for cattle was plentiful. Then when we lived in Kansas I learned that not all grazing ratios are equal. For example where I grew up 2 to 4 acres of grassland would support a cow so on eighty acres you could feasibly graze 40 head of cattle. But if you lived in north central Montana and intended to graze your cattle you would need upwards to 40 acres per cow for adequate grazing. In Montana it would take 1,600 acres to graze that same 40 head of cattle. And if you lived in southern New Mexico it would take 90 acres per cow or 3,600 acres to graze that same herd of cattle. In other words, the more arid the land, the larger the area necessary for grazing livestock.
Moses had to take his father-in-law’s flock of sheep a great distance in order to find enough grazing for the sheep.
That’s what Moses was doing. That is why Moses was at Mt. Horeb. He was grazing his sheep… not on a desert pilgrimage to discover God.
Horeb means “wasteland” or “desolate.” It was an arid and barren place. There was not a lot going on from the perspective of a sheep herder. But that was when where God showed up… God showed up in the least likely of places.
What would be your least likely place for God to show up? (Please don’t say, “Church.”) The idea is that given the possibility that God may show up anywhere, we need to b e alert to that possibility.
I don’t know that it is accurate to say that God always shows up in extraordinary ways but sometimes it seems to be the case.
II. God sometimes shows up in extraordinary ways to ordinary people.
There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of a fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. Exodus 3:2
A. Sometimes God shows up in extraordinary ways.
I would place the burning bush in the category of extraordinary.
During a game on Monday night, August 11, during a baseball game between the Astros and the Atlanta Braves a young couple was sitting in the field-level boxes down the left field line. The young woman, Sarah, expressed her reservations to her boyfriend, Bo. She was afraid she would get hit by a foul ball sitting there but Bo assured her that he would catch the ball if it came their way. Shortly thereafter he was caught on tape scurrying out of the way as a line drive baseball hit Sarah in the elbow.
Sometimes God shows up like a burning bush or a line-=drive ball out of the blue.
One of the things I like about our Group Summer VBS Curriculum is that they have a piece called, “God-Sightings,” in which students are asked to be on the lookout for God’s activity.
Not every God-sighting is all bottle-rockers and cherry bombs.
B. Sometimes God usually shows up in very ordinary ways.
In nearly the same location but years later there is a story in the bible about a prophet named Elijah who got in trouble with the powers that be and fled into the Sinai wilderness to save his life. He had traveled deep in the wilderness walking some 40 days before taking up residence in a cave on, of all places, Mt. Horeb. The story is recorded in I Kings 19.
Elijah was feeling all beat up and like he was the only good person left on the planet when God spoke to him and said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” So he did.
Suddenly a great and powerful wind ripped through the mountains and shattering rocks, but the Lord was not in the wind. Then there was an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a firestorm, which I assume was all about thunder and lightning. But the Lord was not in the firestorm. And after the firestorm came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here Elijah?”
God is not looking for extraordinary people. God is looking for ordinary people who will trust God in an extraordinary way.
Morton Kondracke is known as a no-nonsense, independent-thinking journalist who, in addition to writing, appears on shows like The McLaughlin Group and Fox's The Beltway Boys. His wife his life has been touched by Parkinson's, a disease that affects over a million Americans.
In an interview with Dick Staub, Kondracke describes how they first discovered the disease: She had beautiful handwriting, and she was writing a check and couldn't form the letter k right. I didn't appreciate that there was any difference. It looked fine to me. But she insisted that, no, there was something wrong.
Later she had a tremor in the little finger of her right hand, and then her foot would sort of wobble on the brakes when she was driving.
She had been a counselor at the neurology center in Bethesda, Maryland, helping families with patients with chronic neurological diseases. She was given Symmetrel which is a Parkinson's medicine by a doctor, and he didn't tell her what it was. But she called me up at work one day, totally distraught and hysterical in a way that I'd never heard Milly before. She said, "You have to come home right away."
There she was standing in the bedroom with this bottle in her hand. She said, "This is a Parkinson's medicine. It can't be Parkinson's. I've seen Parkinson's. It's a horrible disease. I won't be able to talk. I won't be able to walk. I won't be able to swallow. I won't be able to eat. You'll have to take me to the bathroom. I'll be totally dependent. You won't love me anymore. You'll leave me."
[I had to] convince her that I was not going to bug out. Apparently 50 percent of men whose wives have chronic illnesses split. Women tend to stick and men don't half the time. She couldn't be sure that I wasn't one of the wrong 50 percent in the beginning, but after a certain point she realized that I was there for the duration….
You just ask God's help every day, multiple times a day. I couldn't do this without God's help. I pray for help and strength and Milly's deliverance, all the time.
I simply could not do this without feeling that I was doing God's work in a small way. I've asked God innumerable times, you know, So what is my purpose here on Earth? hoping that he will add a new and grandiose dimension to this, which he never does. The message always comes back the same: Your job here is to take care of Milly. ("The Dick Staub Interview: Morton Kondracke" ChristianityToday.com, 8-13-02)
Most of the time God calls upon ordinary people to do extraordinary things like take care of Milly.
Has God ever showed up in your life in an extraordinary way? In my life I can recall two times that God showed up in my life in an extraordinary – almost burning bush like ways. But while meaningful and memorable, those have not been the defining moments of my life. And my life has not been defined by the heroic or dramatic riding into the land of Egypt and freeing the slaves from their evil taskmasters.
Sometimes it is like that, most of the time it isn’t. It’s God nudging us with gentle whispers and God nudging us to do what seems to be pretty ordinary stuff but the doing of which is extraordinary.
I had bigger things in mind when I began writing this message but I’ve decided this is a good place to stop. The last two points are fairly obvious…
My third point is…
III. When God gets your attention, pay attention.
So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn up.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.”
My fourth point is…
IV. When God shows up that place becomes sacred space.
“Do not come any closer,” God said, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. Exodus 3:5-6
Conclusion:
Earlier I said that I believe that wherever God makes His presence known is a holy place and when God shows up it is a holy occasion that necessitates that we pay attention.
You may be walking along or driving in your car when an idea occurs or a prompting occurs and you know God did it.
You may be reading a book or studying a passage of Scripture when suddenly the lights come on and you know God has opened your understanding.
You may be in the midst of a disagreement when something inside you clicks and you remember that you love that person and that God is giving you an opportunity for healing not for havoc.
You may be snowed in and unable to get to work and feeling all overwhelmed by the fact that your work in not getting done when it occurs to you that God has given you a gift of down time.
You may be up to your ears busy when your son or daughter or grandson or granddaughter comes to you holding out a book and asking you to read a story.
You may be totally bummed out and depressed when the postman drops off an encouraging card or the phone rings and it is a friend calling to check in on you.
Holy moments make for holy places where we can pray prayers of thanks, offer words of encouragement, apologize, say, “I love you,” change a rotten attitude, feed a stranger, share your faith, begin a new course of action or take a step in the right direction, or drop someone a note or…
So the challenge is to pay attention so God can get your attention transforming holy ground moments into holy ground places.
