“SACRED SPACE”
Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, 21 nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”
– Luke 17:20-21
We probably don’t talk about this as much as we should… sacred space that is… as most of us are far too busy chasing our own dreams and posting our personal lists of achievements and building more rooms to store our toys and trophies. This all comes with a cost. But, there’s hope. Please trust me on this.
I could talk about sacred space for days I think and how we sometimes notice the moment and in so doing treasure its impact… but more often than not either we ignore the sacred or reject it as undesirable… and ultimately miss out on a deeper encounter with God’s holiness… and referring to this as ‘holy space’ or a ‘holy moment’ then or by pointing to the events in our lives which offer a shift in perspective or even better yet a total twist of our view of life so that when the sacred space is encountered… we see life now never the same as it was the moment before …
Take the Grand Canyon for instance… or Niagara Falls. I’ve been to the US and Canadian border many times in my life… seeing the falls which connects Lake Erie to Lake Ontario… when I was 12 years old… it’s an awesome sight… but nothing compared to the last time I stood on the Canadian side… at almost age 40…to put things in a perspective I did not have at age 12. Water washes… water cleanses… water rushes away everything extra in our lives leaving only that which is important.
So… the last time… I made the sign of the cross over myself trusting God was still with me as I remembered the great promises made at my baptism… and I was new again. The Grand Canyon?
Well… let me put it this way… as a preacher for decades I got paid to talk and when I walked up to the south canyon rim… I stood speechless for minutes finally able to muster one word… saying over and over… ‘wow’… ‘wow’… ‘wow’… recognizing I was in a sacred and holy space carved out over the centuries by the hand of God… a thing no human effort could achieve.
The Bible is full of sacred space… right there in black and white and in some Bibles… in the red letters… and I don’t have enough space here in this column to say all that can be said about it… but people like us can read between the lines and see from one story to another how God is at work in ways most of us do not understand or even if we do… we have a difficult time wrapping our heads and hearts around the fullness God is…
Where can we find that sacred space? It’s not always when things go right or what we might think as best… like when Joseph was tossed in a hole and left for dead but didn’t die ending up in Egypt only to land in jail meeting Pharoah’s baker who told his boss… ‘this guy interprets dreams’… and Joseph became a big deal for Pharoah and was in charge of the food supply and recognized his brothers who had left him for dead and told them… “what you meant for evil… God meant for good.”
That didn’t happen over a weekend… but built into all of that is sacred space… or when the angels shut up the lion’s mouths and Daniel’s life was spared or when Jesus turned water into wine and got the wedding planner in trouble… and then there is a cross and an empty tomb… talk about life changing… Jesus said… the kingdom … the reign… the power of God… is within you… perhaps then the place to begin… with you… within you… to live deeper in the sacred space God has provided and trusts you will find… Faith matters. It does… as sacred space abounds!
The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Gigee is a long-time resident of Pearland, having pastored four churches over the last four decades in Texas and Louisiana. Read more following Brian’s blog ‘murmurings’ at https://briangigee.wordpress.com/. Send comments and/or questions to godworks247365@gmail.com.
