“Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.” Exodus 25:8
It is not that God needs a sanctuary any more than the ocean needs an aquarium. God’s Spirit is already beyond the air itself. He is bursting out of every atom. To this end Solomon prayed, “will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built” (1 Kings 8:27)!
The temple is a meeting house. The art of sanctuary and location is for human hands to adorn, and human eyes to adore. We need to walk to it with our feet and say our prayers within it’s compass. As soon as God creates a location he creates a choice. I may choose to draw near to encounter, or I may choose to ignore it. When I choose to leave many spaces to come to one space, then I have chosen to prioritize that person and that connection.
The sanctuary creates a bassinette for God to bed down into our behaviors, priorities, and memories. The sanctuary gives us a specific location in which to know him and enjoy him. He becomes the object of my concentration. In a world of choices, the sanctuary is a space where his presence is sought and realized. His glory already covers the whole earth; God is already in everything and through everything. Meister Eckart called God the “ground of potentiality.” But I am too small of a creature to grasp the All-of-God filling every moment of time and space. I grow by degrees and progression. I learn by collecting facts and evaluating experiences. I don’t already know everything. I have to accumulate my knowledge of God through a process of searching and worshipping. Then he becomes glorified and known to me in that slow progressive unfolding!
As we plant ourselves in the activity of his glories, his glories are more readily realized. It’s the same as when you want to honor your friend. You look for a character trait within them that you appreciate, then you praise them for that trait. The more you praise them, the more quickly you recognize every time they manifest that trait. As we concentrate on God and affirm Him, we more quickly realize his presence among us. He doesn’t need our affirmation. But the affirmation of him expands the awareness of his character within us. The more that I call him faithful, the more that I recognize his faithfulness and am capable of enjoying it. The more we learn to focus on him somewhere—a sanctuary, for example—the more we begin to see his goodness everywhere.
The New Testament expands this view of God’s temple. Every human heart and every human mind becomes the potential house of worship in which we encounter God for ourselves. The availability of his Spirit within us does not retract the necessity for intentionally pursuing God. We still must seek to “go up to the house of the Lord” to worship him; turn our attention towards him; say ‘no’ to one hundred other activities so we can pursue him; submit our lives to him; and rearrange our lives around relationship with him. Only then will we more fully enjoy the fruit of his promise, “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8).
Tags: character, union, temple, relationship, god; sanctuary
