Wednesday, February 15, 2023

 

Wednesday, February 15, 2023


Psalm 104:1-25

Genesis 28

Luke 6:27-38


And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”


I wonder how you conceive of the fact that the Bible describes two realms: a physical, and a spiritual. There is enough material in the scriptures that talk about the earth, or the world, in contrast with the heavenly, or the spiritual.


Is the spiritual somewhere “over there”? Is heaven somewhere “up there”?


Is this plane of existence, the planets, the stars, the plants and the animals, “down here”?


If there is a contrast, it is not a divide. Almost two thousand years before the incarnation, God was already showing to Jacob that He has no problem with leaving His throne to visit His footstool. Earth is not an unpleasant place for God to be. In fact, God loves to be here with us.


This is why Jesus’ instructions on holy living are not scary. If we humans were scrabbling around “down here” in the dirt, on our own, fighting for survival, Jesus’ teaching to give everything we have to whoever asks for it would be suicidal madness.


Instead, Jesus is confident on our behalf, that we can live in the way He asks us to, because He knows that God is control, and present here with us, and will never leave us on our own.


The Celtic Christians would describe moments in time where the veil between heaven and earth was lifted as “thin places”. Jesus encourages us to view our entire lives as living in a “thin place”. In our cars, our kitchens, with families, enemies, animals or alone in silence: we are in the house of God, and Christ has opened the gate of heaven for us. Walk through it.



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