VESSELS - Why We Are Thin Places And What This Means

A man representing people as thin places

 Last week I wrote about thin places and their importance inour busy lives. So often we associate thin places with physical space, so I want to write a post about people as thin places, specifically us.

It starts with Christ.

If thin places are about bridges between heaven and earth, where the divine feels more tangible, then Christ is the ultimate thin place, the ultimate conduit for the glory and presence of God. 

 In ancient Israel, the priesthood acted as the go-between for God and His people. 

 It was the priests who performed the ritual sacrifices, and the priests who entered the holy of holies in the temple where God’s presence dwelt.

The writer of the book of Hebrews calls Jesus our High Priest. When Christ died Matthew records that the curtain in the temple, separating the holy of holies from all else, was torn in two. Jesus is now the new mediator, the new thin place.

The writer and apostle Peter makes bolder claims, that we are the new priesthood, the new mediators of this presence, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us.

The writer and apostle Paul also talks about this theme in his first letter to the church in Corinth, explaining that we are not just the priests, but also the temple, the place where God dwells.

We are thin places

We need to ask ourselves; are we being thin places to those that we meet. When they encounter our presence, do they feel like the veil between and heaven earth is a bit thinner?

It is important for us to understand that there is nothing inherently special about places that are identified as “thin places”.

The rocks are not imbued with a heavenly vigour, the grass doesn’t shine with holy radiance. They are just as “earthy” as everything else. Thin places are there not to show us that some places are more special or sacred than others, but to show us that all places are sacred, and now we can see that more clearly.

It is the same for us. 

 In his second letter to the church in Corinth Paul describes us as not just temples or priests, but as earthen vessels filled with great treasure.

 It isn’t about how we look, or how smart we are, but is about whether we help others to see that they are made in the image of God.

To help them see that they are precious. To help them see that the other side of eternity already exists within them.

Do we call forth the best from within them?

Do we help them to encounter the radical, breathtaking love of God?

Do we help them to see the infinite value that is placed on them?
May we help others encounter this life-giving, loving God. May we help others understand the potential and beauty found within them. And may we be thin places.

Comments

Post a Comment

* indicates required

Popular posts from this blog

If God is All Good and All Powerful, Why Does Suffering Exist?

Image
Philosopher Alvin Plantinga called the problem of suffering “the only good objection to God”. The often quoted argument goes:  “if God is all good (all benevolent) then God has the desire to end suffering, and if God is all-powerful (omnipotent) then God has the ability to end suffering. Therefore if God does not end suffering, then God is either not all good, or is not all-powerful, and is therefore not God”. As Christians, we need to be able to answer this objection to God, to enable us to “give a reason for the faith that we have in Christ Jesus” (1 Peter 3:15). To this end, I want to try and answer this question to help anybody who finds the problem of suffering to be a sticking point or an obstacle in their faith (an argument to explain the problem of suffering is called a “theodicy”). To begin with, I want to go back to the beginning of it all and look at God. Who is God and what is God like? It is worth noting here that this argument takes as given the fact
Keep reading

The Surprising Truth About The Differences Between The Temptation Narratives of Matthew and Luke and What They Teach Us About Overcoming Temptation

Image
  5 MINUTE READ We are now well into Lent , one of the two great fasts in the Christian Calendar ( along with Advent ). Lent is the time when we contemplate Christ’s sacrifice, along with Christ’s 40 days of temptation in the wilderness. When we give up things for Lent we find ourselves tempted in similar, yet far less extreme, circumstances (Let’s be honest, who wants to hang out in the wilderness by themselves for 40 days and eat and drink nothing; I can barely handle giving up chocolate!). Much writing during this time consists of looking at the temptations of Jesus, and how Jesus overcame them as a template for our own overcoming of temptations. But in this post, I do not intend to look at the traditional views, but rather to look at the differences between how Matthew and Luke told the story of Christ’s temptation and what we can learn from these differences. Let’s look at them now. Why Differences are OK We do not like to discuss differences in acco
Keep reading

SANDWICHES - Enhance Your Reading of Mark's Gospel

Image
As followers of Christ, we look to the Bible as one of our main sources of inspiration and guides in our lives. So it follows that we all want our times reading the Bible to be as rich as possible. Learning more about the Bible is one way to help with this. It is particularly helpful when we know the types of things that the authors of the books used to aid us in this task. To this end I wanted to talk about something that has enriched my reading of the gospel of Mark: Markan Sandwiches (also called interpolations ). Essentially, what Mark does is get one story within his gospel, and inserts it inside another story ; this serves the purpose of giving both stories a greater sense of meaning. It’s purpose is to make the reader stop and think “Mark is trying to tell us something important here”. In practice it looks like this: Story 1 – Introduction Story 2 – Introduction & Conclusion Story 1 – Conclusion We can see where the idea of the sandwich comes f
Keep reading