Sanctuary

Two summers ago, when we were on the Island of Iona, I remember going in to worship in that ancient abbey. It definitely felt like a thin place. It was originally built somewhere around the year 1200 I could feel within the walls a thousand years of prayers. I thought about the monks, Vikings, and pilgrims who had walked that sacred ground. 

There was one particular Saturday morning when we went in to worship, the wind was howling and rain was just coming down in sheets. Lighting was cracking. We came in out of the wet cold and sat down. In the moment of silence before worship, you could hear the wind and rain lashing the building outside. And Robbie leaned over and said, if feels like we are quite literally taking sanctuary here.

Psalm 100 is an invitation to find sanctuary: 

Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth… Come into God’s presence with singing. Enter God’s courts with praise…

Many scholars believe this psalm was sung as part of a processional leading into the temple in Jerusalem. You can almost sense the underlying joy and exuberance. Of course in those days, people would often travel far to get to the temple. And if you were fortunate enough to be able to make that journey, and enter this holy space, I imagine this song would resonate.

I think about the people of Israel. In those days they were largely an agricultural people and so their lives were at the mercy of the elements…So often they faced famine and drought. And just by means of where they are geographically, they were often at war.

I think about them then in their act of worship. Here was a community banding together to share their common need and to try to deal with what they could not control or even imagine; banding together to stare death and suffering in the eyes – and yet to claim that this suffering does not get to have the last word.

Come into God’s presence with singing…

May you and I continue to find sanctuary as we offer our entire being in worship to the living God. Whether that is in person or across technology, may we come to see it as the gift that it is. And, in our offering, may God’s healing grace wash over us anew. 

Let us pray: We praise you for the gift of life and love, O God. We turn our hearts now to take sanctuary in you. Take our hearts… take our guilt, our shame, our worries, our anxiety, our joy, our praise, our lives… And fill us with healing, meaning, hope… with mana, with the Bread of Life; through Christ, our Lord. Amen.