Ezekiel 42
Create Sacred Spaces!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Saturday, July 20.
Where do you go to experience God’s presence? While we know that God is always everywhere, how do you intentionally seek to encounter God specifically somewhere? The vision of the New Temple continued as the angel took the prophet to the adjacent priestly structures. The priests’ chambers connected with the inner court, but also had entrances to the outer court. In Ezekiel 42:13-14, the angel explained the importance of constructing these sacred spaces:
Then he said to me, “The north chambers and the south chambers, which are opposite the separate area, they are the holy chambers where the priests who are near to the Lord shall eat the most holy things. There they shall lay the most holy things, the grain offering, the sin offering and the guilt offering; for the place is holy. When the priests enter, then they shall not go out into the outer court from the sanctuary without laying there their garments in which they minister, for they are holy. They shall put on other garments; then they shall approach that which is for the people.”
These rooms were intentional sacred spaces for the priests to change into their ministry garments, such as a sacristy or vestry in a church, where vestments are stored and changed into. It was customary for Israelite priests to eat a portion of the offerings, and according to Leviticus 7:6, that had to be done in a sacred place. Ezekiel’s vision of the New Temple preserved these ancient traditions, upholding the importance of creating sacred spaces for worship. Creating sacred space is still an important part of worshipping the God who is holy. Is it possible that in our evangelical tradition’s desire to transform the ordinary into the everyday sacred, that, unintentionally, we have diminished our experience of the sacred all together?
Seize the moment and create sacred spaces to encounter the holiness of God in your life.
God bless you!
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