this hallowed ground

The Word for today:
2 Chronicles 3:1-5:1

mark these:
Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. (2 Chronicles 3:1)

He made an altar of bronze, twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high. (2 Chronicles 4:1)

I remember when I first began to read the Bible. Even though, right away, I considered it the best thing I'd ever read, it would be a long, long while before I found myself reflexively "taking off my shoes."

But over time, passages that I'd scarcely noticed began to turn into holy ground. The same thing will happen to you.

Take, for example, the first verses of the chapters scheduled for today. Once a year, for many years, I read right past them. They caused no emotional stir:
Then Solomon began to build the house of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the LORD had appeared to David his father, at the place that David had appointed, on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. (2 Chronicles 3:1)

He made an altar of bronze, twenty cubits long and twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high. (2 Chronicles 4:1)

But when the Bible reader who has been around the block 8, 12, or 20 times reads those same words, he will take off his shoes, for this is holy ground (1)--

Because he reaches the realization that the first verse in chapter 3 is a precise description of the place later to be called Golgotha...
the exact spot where, according to the pictures and prophecies of the Old Testament, the Lamb of God must die for the sins of the people...
on a ridge called Moriah which cuts through Jerusalem; the same ridge where Abraham had enacted the prophetic picture of the cross when told to sacrifice Isaac, his son...
at a specific spot on that ridge--the threshing floor of Ornan (also known as Araunah) which God had directed David to purchase (2), so that the Temple could be built there.

Because he reaches the realization that the first verse in chapter 4 is the Old Testament picture of the ultimate altar--the cross of Jesus Christ. Alternately known as the bronze altar or the altar of burnt offering, it was a picture of the place where the Lamb of God was to endure hell fire in atonement for the sins of the world.

***

You can't rush the process. I passed this place maybe 8 or 9 times before I knew that I was at the foot of the cross.

But on my 10th trip past this hallowed ground, I instinctively tugged at my shoelaces.

So will you.

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(1) see Exodus 3 and Acts 7:33; (2) see 2 Samuel 24