When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” (4-5)
Throughout history, people have attached sacredness to certain places. Some sites have been declared holy because of a miracle or event that supposedly occurred there. Others inspire a sense of awe because of the beauty and majesty of the landscape. Some traditions will even make pilgrimages to holy sites and believe there is some kind of spiritual blessing to be obtained by being in a particular place. In modern-day Evangelicalism, we often deemphasize the importance of place and instead focus on time and the individual. This tendency is partly due to the fact that we no longer worship in a temple made with hands, but our very hearts have become the temple of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, we must be cautious in assigning special significance or holiness to a place when true holiness is found in God alone.
However, this story mentions a place that God, Himself called holy. This pronouncement did not come from Moses or another religious leader but from God. What made that place holy was the Holy One who physically occupied that space in the moment. Today, we sometimes attach a sense of reverence or “specialness” to certain places, and I am not sure this is out of order. While we must be careful not to worship the place, some places are more significant than others because of the special acts of God that occurred there. The dorm room where I gave my life to Christ is not special to anyone else, but to me, it is sacred. When the church is gathered on Sunday morning in a particular location, and the word of God is preached, that place is somehow imbued with deeper significance. Yes, God is everywhere all the time, and we should not believe that some places have magical powers. However, when God shows up and does something extraordinary, even that place becomes extraordinary in the moment and elicits a response from us. For Moses, he had to take off his sandals. It is a good and proper thing to be reverent in places like these because it reminds us of the holiness of God and the greatness of His acts in a particular time and space. Remember that when you gather for worship this Easter Sunday!
