This Sanctuary

Exodus 25:1-9 The Message

1GOD spoke to Moses: 2"Tell the Israelites that they are to set aside offerings for me. Receive the offerings from everyone who is willing to give. 3These are the offerings I want you to receive from them: gold, silver, bronze; 4blue, purple, and scarlet material; fine linen; goats' hair; 5tanned rams' skins; dolphin skins; acacia wood; 6lamp oil; spices for anointing oils and for fragrant incense; 7onyx stones and other stones for setting in the Ephod and the Breastpiece. 8Let them construct a Sanctuary for me so that I can live among them. 9You are to construct it following the plans I've given you, the design for The Dwelling and the design for all its furnishings.

There’s something so beautiful about this picture. The willing offering of a people who would stop at giving nothing but the best – of gold, fine linen, incense, precious stones and more; making space for a Sanctuary that would have God dwell among them. In moments of desperation and need, we often turn our cries heavenward in earnest, praying for the assuring presence of our comforter, Emmanuel ‘God-is-with-us’. Yet, in doing so, we have assumed that between the heavens and the earth lies a great divide of which God is on one side and we the other.

Yahweh, I am reminded, has always – and shall always be a personal God. Right from Creation, we bear the image of a God who because of His great love gave His most beloved children the autonomy to choose if they would receive His love and respond in return. And as we were expelled from Eden, we had a God who remained faithful to us even in our rebellion. Through the generations, He journeyed with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He raised up Judges time and again to deliver Israel from their enemies. He established David as His representative, and He sought to speak to His chosen people through the Prophets. And when all else failed, He sent His Son to bridge that great divide we had drawn between us and Him when we hearkened to the Serpent’s devilish tales of deceit and bit into the cursed fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.

It is with a heart of thanksgiving and praise that I come to understand that there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. The greatest divide that we may draw is the same one that we see in the story played out in Eden. Compelled by the same love that we saw in the beginning, we too must make the choice to draw near to Him or not. God desires a willing offering from His people – a people who would choose to make space for Him in their lives – and we may be confident that He would surely dwell among us if we do so.

I’m in a season where I’m still learning how to move from mere rhetoric to a faith expressed through every facet of my life. I suspect most people my age would find themselves feeling like a schizophrenic as they wrestle with questions of their destiny, identity, purpose and worth – and when enough pressure has been exerted in one direction or another, we make a choice either to walk the tight-rope of faith or abandon it altogether. There is no doubt about it, for market-place pressures are real, and how many of us can honestly say that we have made our way through the labyrinth of the concrete jungle without a scar here or a scratch there; and without having lost our innocence in the dangerously enchanting woods out there?

But if I should have any chance of survival at all, then I must at least remember that a life without the presence of His Sanctuary is surely suicide. I can only pray that I may know what of my possessions I must willingly give in order that His presence may be able to dwell in my midst. As for now, I recommit this choice that I have made: Emmanuel, dwell with me – I choose you.