Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his servant?” The captain of the Lord’s host said to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.
– Joshua 5:13-15
When we think of holy ground, the image that comes to us quickly is a rugged mountain in the Sinai wilderness. On this mountain Moses encountered a bush, burning but not being consumed (see Exodus 3). From the bush, God spoke, and in the part of the narrative that we easily remember, God instructs Moses to remove his sandals because the ground where he stands is holy. If we were able today to locate that spot with certainty, we would place velvet ropes around it with signs describing to tourists and pilgrims what happened in that place. Most likely, someone would figure out how to charge admission as well. The place would be venerated by multitudes of people from all parts of the world.
Am I right?
Now let’s consider for a moment why the location was called holy ground. I suppose the obvious answer is that God was there. While that may be true (and I believe it is), we also believe that God is everywhere. This was the contention of the writer of Psalm 139. “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there” (Ps. 139:7-8). If this also is true (and I believe it is), does that make all ground holy ground? That would be the logical conclusion, and there is a sense in which we can say that all ground is holy because God is (big word warning) omnipresent. This conclusion, though, seems to have taken us from what the scripture texts are saying. There must be something else to consider.
I have heard it said that if everything is special, then nothing is special. (You can replace the word special with important and the point remains the same.) If something is special, it carries more weight or deeper meaning than other things by comparison. If we try to say that everything is special or everything is important, then to some degree we rob those words of their meaning. The same can be true of our idea of holy ground. We should not just think of it as a place where God is present. Instead, we can think of it as a place where God chooses to meet us. Whether Moses in the wilderness of Sinai or Joshua near Gilgal, holy ground happened because God met them there.
I have been on holy ground, and I don’t mean in the sense of visiting what are called holy sites. Among the short list of places that have become holy ground for me are the infield of the old Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, a conference room at a church camp facility, a snow-covered mountaintop in West Virginia, and the sleeper compartment of a truck. These aren’t places you would normally consider holy ground, but they became holy ground for me because God, in a very unexpected way, chose to meet me in those places. And to be precise, God chose to meet me in those places to convey something He wanted me to hear. It may have had to do with my calling, or to give clarity regarding the circumstances I was facing. In every case the meeting with God was clear, timely and specific.
When Moses stood on holy ground, God have him a calling. Joshua already had his calling when he stood on holy ground, so God gave him his next set of marching orders. Jacob slept on holy ground without realizing it until he awakened (see Genesis 28:11-22). There are too many examples for us to draw the boundaries of holy ground narrowly. One thing seems certain: when God meets you on holy ground, you will know it, and you will know why.
See you along the Winding Path.
The Winding Path 