Going back

I, the Lord your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill (Joel 3:17) 
There was a wooden circle, now called Woodhenge, not far from Stonehenge. It is all gone now bar some marks in the soil visible only from the air but, in it's time, it was the place people came to meet. While Stonehenge is surrounded by evidence of human death, by barrows and burials, Woodhenge is surrounded by evidence of human life, by cooking fires and houses. It is hard to tell of course, but it seems probable that both were used for worship. Stonehenge for rites connected to death and eternity, Woodhenge for rites connected to life and prosperity. The dead dwell near one, the living near the other.
The promise of Joel is the removal of such a distinction. God dwells at the centre of both life and worship, death and eternity. There is no place of life and place of death, for our dwelling is with God both now and for ever. As the Book of Revelation has it 'I will be their God and they will be my children'.
Thus the symbolism of a closed church is a powerful one. The place of life and worship has become a place of silence and burial. The church scattered longs to return to her buildings not to find new life in them, for God dwells within us by his Spirit, but to bring life back to them, to proclaim in no uncertain terms that God has not left us.

A leaf miner snacks on my fruit tree




Location: United Kingdom

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We are in good company

Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your fathers? (Joel 1:2) As I scrolled through the endless news on the coronavirus, as I expect we all do, I came across a comparison with measles. According to The New Statesman, measles is far more infectious. Each person with measles passes it on to an average of 10 others. With the coronavirus the number is about 2.5. Then it struck me. Before vaccination, before antibiotics, our 'fathers' must have regularly experienced such infections sweeping across the world. The speed of spread would have been slower and the depth of cover less, but the effects must have been the same: anxiety and isolation. In Eyam in The Peak District, the villagers found the plague in their midst. Instead of fleeing the village and taking the disease to the city, the rector, William Mompesson, persuaded them to go into self-isolation. Food was left for them at the boundary stone by the villages around, paid for with coins disinfect
Read more

Under judgement

Image
I will gather all the nations...to the valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel 3:2)  In my early days of Christian ministry I was given some sage advice. I was smarting under the yoke of unjust criticism and a friend pointed me to Dick Lucas' Three Es of Criticism: expect it, examine it, endure it. It's funny. I think I've got reasonably adept at examining even the most absurd attacks and finding useful sources for self-examination and inspiration. And I am always hurt by criticism, unfair or not, but have many resources for speeding its departure. No, the one that still catches me out is its unpredictable appearance. Just when you really think you're on top of things and making a decent job in a difficult situation, there it is. Lighting out of a clear sky. I suspect most people feel like this about the judgement of God. I've lived a decent life, been fair in my dealings, kind to my neighbours and a good husband and father, or wife and mother. And then I'm meant to believe
Read more

Time for school

Image
I am going to rouse them (Joel 3:7)  What a lovely image. God is like a mother rousing her children to get them ready to go to school. She wakes them from a deep slumber, encourages them out of bed and gets them up and going. In Joel it has that extra sense of rescue. God is rousing them for a journey. And not any journey. They have been sold into slavery and he has bought them back. Now it is not the slave driver with his whip who barks them out of bed but their loving father gently interrupting their dreams and calling them home. In about a week, many of our youngest children will be roused from their beds to get ready to go back to school. The government have become convinced that the time has come to call the children back to the classroom. The evidence is on their side. Where it has been tried, infection rates have not risen significantly. The limited data we have on child infection suggests that the youngest of our population do not just shrug the virus off easily, but generally
Read more