Not the Only Holy Space

More than a few times I had someone explain their absence from Sunday worship by saying something like, "Preacher, my church is on the river...or at the lake...."  While it was not my place to offer an argument, I often wondered if they took their Bible to the river, or their fishing tackle.  I never was convinced those Sunday absentees were going to the river to worship God when they only took their fishing gear. 

 

Of course, it is true that God can be worshipped in any place.  As I have gone along this road of faith, I have come to the place of believing that holy space is not just the space within the four walls of a church building.  However, this does not mean that the holy space within the four walls is not a place of value in our spiritual lives.  As we read the Biblical story we find many stories where places were marked as holy because of encounters with God.  Stones were often used to mark such  places as a way of reminding the generations still to come that a place was holy not just because it was a part of the created order, but because it was a place where God had revealed Himself.

 

It does not need to be one or the other. The fact that the ground all around us is holy ground does not change the reality that some space has been marked and set apart as holy by the prayers of the people of God and God's response to those prayers.  The holy space within the four walls stands within the holy space of the earth around it, but not everyone who looks sees and knows this.  Thus, the holy space of a sanctuary visibly points those who see to the reality that what is holy stands among us.  And, maybe in time, it will be a reminder that the church building is not the only holy space.