Holy ground

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"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." - Exodus 3:5

It just dawned upon me as I was reading Exodus 3 something about holy ground. Mount Sinai was not holy by its own sake, but it was holy because of God's presence. I was just teaching the other day to another brother that in Christianity, there is no such thing as a holy ground. Jerusalem, for all its worth, is only a piece of land where action has taken place but by no means it is a holy land. Our church building is by no means a holy land just because we use it for service.

It is the same thing for holy communion. I have mentioned it once in this blog but I still wanna talk about it because it continues to annoy me. The holy communion elements are not holy by its own sake, so I can decide to dispose the elements in whatever ways I desire. I still can remember the face of the brother who told me that it's THE HOLY COMMUNION... diaoz... But I shall not dwell on that any other further.

So even in Moses' day, grounds are not holy by itself. I think Exodus 3:5 implies it, though not so obvious. Unfortunately, I dun understand why people ascribe holiness to places and things as time goes by. It is a bit similar to what we see in Chinese religions today in Singapore. I sometimes wonder the way Chinese treats their deities. I think if the deities are powerful enough to help them, then they should be powerful enough to hear their prayers wherever their devotees are. It amuses me that sometimes, we hear people saying that certain temples are more 灵 than the other.... I diaoz again.. Is it really so? I wonder.

But the Bible says it very clearly that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, aka God. In the old testament time, the presence of God follows the Ark of Covenant and eventually resides in the temple, which made them holy. Likewise, since our body is the temple, it means that our body now becomes the holy ground. That is why Peter quoted from Leviticus to exhort us to be holy because our God is holy.

So it is up to us to live up the holiness of this 'holy ground'. It is time to think about this.

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