The Call of the Wild--Part 2

Admat Kodesh

There is a legend among the Yiddish Hasidic Jews that at any time there are 36 righteous people living on Earth.  They are called the Lamed Vav Tzadikim (36 Righteous Ones) or Tzadikim Nistarim (the hidden righteous ones).  Legend has it that were it not for them, all of them, if even one were missing, the world would come to an end.  Tradition holds that their identities are unknown, even to themselves.

Yiddish folklore tells the story of a community that was in deep trouble.

"They were shrinking, they were impoverished, they couldn't get along. No one would step up to leadership and if they did they would be destroyed by those who criticized them. Clearly it was a community heading downhill.

This little town had some self awareness about their predicament so they invited a famous rabbi to come and speak with them. However after meeting with them, the rabbi did not have a solution, not to their shrinking population, not to their poverty, not to their dysfunctional communal structure. When he left the people were even more discouraged than before.  

Just as he was about to go, someone heard him say, that one of the 36 righteous, one of the lamedvavniks upon which the world depends, lived in this little town. Word began to spread and slowly things began to change. Instead of treating each other roughly, people became a little bit more courteous - after all you wouldn't want to be rude to a lamedvavnik. They began to listen to each other, they were more willing to give each other the benefit of the doubt- after all the motivations of a lamedvavnik would certainly be kindly. Slowly the town got cleaned up, people began supporting each other, the economy improved, and other people passing through found it a pleasant community and decided to settle there. Looking back the people wondered, the rabbi had done nothing and yet accomplished a great deal. 

All these changes because of an efshar, a hint to remember-that every spot on earth is holy ground."  Rabbi Jack Riemer

What would change if you lived your life remembering that every spot on earth has the potential to be holy ground?

Would we drive differently if our car was Holy Ground?  

Would we work differently if our office was Holy Ground?  

Would you speak to your children differently if their messy bedrooms were Holy Ground?  

Would you watch the same things on TV, or "google" the same things, if your family room were Holy Ground?  

What is Holy Ground?  

Holy Ground, or Admat Kodesh, is the place where the voice of God is heard. 

Holy Ground is the the place where the Spirit of God dwells.  

Whether it be the most ornate cathedral in Europe or the lowliest stable in Bethlehem, when the Spirit of God decides to rest there, it is Holy Ground.  The mundane physical space is transformed into a sacred sanctuary.  

The years of Moses' life are divided into forties.  He was forty years a prince in the Pharaoh's court.  He was forty years a shepherd in the wilderness, and forty years leading the sons of Israel to through the wilderness to the Promised Land.  Moses was born to be the deliverer of Israel yet not a word is said to him of it until he is eighty years old.  God did not appear to him when he was a prince in Pharaoh's court, where he had political and familial influence.  God appeared to him when he had absolutely nothing left to offer.  What a sharp contrast between Moses in the courts of Egypt surrounded by all the splendor of royalty, and Moses the humble hireling shepherd, leading his flocks over the rough places of the desert. (Notes Critical and Practical on the Book of Exodus by George Bush)

Holiness in the humdrum, Elohim stepping into the everyday, the Almighty choosing to reveal Himself in the average.  Seeing Christ in the commonplace, or Messiah in the monotonous, that's like seeing a king in a shepherd boy, or our Chosen Deliverer in a Nazarene Carpenter.

Exodus 3 could not paint Moses as any more ordinary.   

He was an ordinary man, with an ordinary job, making his ordinary commute, when he sees an ordinary thorn bush, consumed with a common brush fire.  

But in an instant, one eternal instant, Moses took his eyes off of the surrounding wilderness and fixed his gaze upon the sacred.  And God calls out to Moses:  

Shal Naalechah me'al raglecha, ki hamakom asher atah omed, admat kodesh hu. 

Take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.

In the time it took Moses to "turn aside" his wilderness became a sanctuary and the ground under Moses' feet became HOLY ground.  A common bush, common grains of sand, common blades of grass became an altar because the pure and holy presence of God dwelt among them.  

How interesting that this first reference to consecrated ground in the Bible isn't in Jerusalem, or even the land of Israel.  It isn't in the temple courts or the Holy of Holies.  It is in the wilderness of Midian.  

I have seen worship in the wilderness.  I have seen patients lift their hands in praise while confined to a hospital bed.  I have seen parents who've lost children testify to God's goodness.  I've seen ministries develop from the most unfortunate circumstances.  I've heard the testimony of my mom, while battling cancer, laying on a radiation table singing: 

"Here I am to worship.

Here I am to bow down.

Here I am to say that You're my God."

Worship in the Wilderness.  

Praise from a prison cell.

When God spoke to Moses from the burning bush he actually said, "Ki hamakom asher atah omed, admat kodesh hu."   The place upon which you are standing, that is the exact situation in which you find yourself, is a holy place.  

The hospital room, the funeral home, the unemployment line, that empty house--these are all holy places.  Not because you are content with the circumstances.  But because God is there.  God has not only come into the wilderness, God defeated the wilderness.  Worshiping in the wilderness is the first step on your journey to the Promised Land.

Take off your shoes and pray

The ground you walk it's holy ground

Every spot on earth I trapse around

Every spot I walk it's holy ground

Every spot it's holy ground

Every little inch it's holy ground

Every grain of dirt it's holy ground

Every spot I walk it's holy ground

(Woody Guthrie, Holy Ground)