The Imprint of the Holy

While it is true that many of today's contemporary worship services are held in sterile gyms, or activity centers which have a few Christian symbols sitting or suspended somewhere in the room, the sanctuary setting for worship is normally overflowing with symbols of the sacred.  It is a room with all kinds of holy stuff:  the Table for the Sacrament, crosses and candles, pulpit and lectern, altars and stain glass windows, hymn books and Bibles, and robes and cassocks.  All of these things as well as the building itself have been consecrated and set aside and apart for the service of God.  During the years of preaching, it always seemed that the sanctuary was an illustration of what it meant to be holy.  To be holy was to be set apart for the work of God.    

When I arrived at the farm, I was put down in the midst of a dilemma.  The dilemma was creation.  The setting of the sanctuary which had defined holy for so long was replaced by the setting of creation.  The creation lacked the holy symbols seen in the sanctuary, but as I soon learned, it was filled with manifestations of the Creator God.  As the sanctuary was holy, so was the Creation, the dirt, the trees, the sky, the sun, and the weeds growing in the hay field.  It was not one thing in the Creation which was holy, but the whole Creation.  There was no place to wander and no place to ponder which was empty of the holy.  

The ancient Psalmist wrote, "Praise the Lord!...Praise Him sun and moon, praise Him all you shining stars!...Mountains and hills, fruit trees and all cedars!  Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!  (Psalm 148:1, 3-4, 9-10)  The same Psalmist ask the question, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?" (Psalm 139:7)   To get out of the sanctuary for a walk in the creation is to know that everything which bears the imprint of the Creator is holy.  It is all set apart to serve Him and to bring glory to His name.  So it is with each one of us.  We are holy. We bear the imprint of the Holy.