Joy in the Presence

When we first moved to this home we now live in, the backyard was...well, it could barely be called 'yard'. It was an unruly wildland of hateful holly bushes, broken pipes and a tall, frightful fir that was about 30 years past its prime. But that wasn't the odd part. The odd part was the fencing.

The space, about 80 feet by 30 feet, was divided into various illogical compartments using various fencing materials of various ages. There was the "backyard proper", fenced in with wood, where grass grew green. This space was surrounded on most sides by the Backyard Wildlands where the grass was tall and brown and assorted brush grew up among fir cones. It was enclosed by a chain-link fence. Finally in a far corner existed The Far Netherlands of Backyardom. It had no fence. It was just a corner that had been UNfenced off as if the yard were in fear of claiming it as its own.

It reminded me of the tabernacle. I called the various spaces "the outer courts" or the "inner courts". I had no idea what I was talking about, but I had seen those diagrams and knew those places existed. The design sense (or any sense at all) in the backyard seemed completely absent, just like, I thought, the tabernacle design. But, as it turns out....as it too often does, I thought wrong. At least in the case of the tabernacle.

If you refer -- in your mind, I dare not post one here -- to any number of those nerdy tabernacle diagrams or illustrations, you'll see that there's a rectangle within a rectangle. There is a smaller rectangle covered tent surrounded by a rectangle cloth "wall". So when we first walk in to the tabernacle, and see the altar and the wash basin, we're in an outdoor courtyard. Walking past the altar and wash basin, we would see the "Inner Courts" or "Holy Place", a covered place of worship.

That the altar remained outside was good design: you're not supposed to make big fires in tents. Also, if there were a bunch of animals inside the tent, it would've felt kind like a circus and maybe a trapeze artist would've shown up to apply for a job.

But it seems in our relationship with God there are those natural divisions too. There's the part that everyone experiences, that everyone participates in together, that everyone sees. And then there are the parts that are more personal, more intimate with God.

That's what the Holy Place is. It's a place that is covered, smaller. I can't tell if just priests went into the Holy Place, or if that was open to everyone. Either way, as followers of Christ, we are adopted into the priesthood, so it hardly matters in terms of application to our own lives. But this smaller place had to have been accessed by fewer people. It certainly wasn't the place people would gather. It was the place to be in God's Presence.

The Holy Place had three distinct features: it had light. It had food. It smelled good. We'll get into those things later, but I mention them now to show it was an inviting place, a place, I imagine, of refreshment and joy. God's Presence does that, doesn't it? There are those mornings I wake up, go out to the couch and just sit down, close my eyes, and sigh, so ready to be with God. (Other days I go out, close my eyes and open them many minutes later, but...that's another thing.)

But we don't start in the Holy Place. They probably would've got more people in the door that way, putting the good stuff at the front, but that's not how it works. We have to deal with stuff before we can go into God's presence. We have to first have recognized Christ as our sacrifice, we have to allow God's Spirit to wash the ugly sin from our lives. No one entered the Holy Place perfect, but they had taken those steps to recognize their own inadequacy before God.

Being the modern American that I am, I like to jump to the good stuff. I try to pal around with God and then noticed he's not elbowing me back like He sometimes does. And sometimes I have go back to the front and start over again. Oh, yeah, I'm in need of grace. Oh, yeah, I have this wrong attitude, this wrong desire. And then I'm put in my place. I'm confronted with my unholiness, my need for a Savior and simultaneously, my guiltlessness before Him because of what He has done. I have a chance to clean those dirty spots in my life.

It makes God's presence all the sweeter. Being with Him is my only true source of joy, I've found. He is kind enough to send other things too, but there have been times I have nothing else.

"So, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water." Hebrews 10.19-22