Signs
of the times
The power of holy places
and the pain of hurting places
by Russ Parker
Who
can forget the graphic scenes of floral tributes which carpeted the streets of
London following the death of the Princess of Wales. Outside Kensington Palace, her London home and also St.
James’ Palace, every available space was covered in photographs, poems,
flowers, dolls and other toys and a host of prayers, flapping with the wind
inside their plastic envelopes. Thousands
of people including tourists from around the world came to read the prayers and
touch the often moving tributes written to Diana.
Just near the scene of her tragic death in Paris there now stands a
statue in tribute to her life. Yet
this need to touch and decorate the location of tragic death is not confined to
this idolised princess. Similar
scenes were witnessed on the grounds of Liverpool Football Club following the
death of nearly 100 fans who were crushed whilst watching their team play in the
semi-final of the FA Cup at Sheffield United’s ground in 1989.
Flowers were placed beside the railway tracks where the four year old
Jamie Bulger’s body was found. It
is now a regular feature of our nation’s life to find wreaths and flowers
suddenly appearing on the sites where people have violently died.
There
is a need within us to mark the wounded places of our land in an effort to
remember the person who has so tragically died; to honour and respect them and
in some way; to say that it was wrong that they died in the way they did and to
bring healing to the actual place. By
and large we are talking about people who do not have a committed Christian
faith and yet what they are doing is completely true to what the Bible has to
say about the importance of land and place.
The scriptures open with the Genesis account of the creation of the earth
and end in the book of Revelation with the healing of the land in creating a new
heaven and earth. On the
whole the Bible teaches us that there are two types of land, holy places where
the presence of God is experienced and hurting places where the sins and wounds
of humanity still cry out for healing.
The Power
of holy places. “Surely the Lord is in
this place” Gen.28:16
Jacob
was a refugee from his family and sleeping out in the desert he chose a place
that had been prayed in before. It
was here he had a momentous revelation of God which changed his life, for from
this moment he had the assurance that no matter how far he wandered, his real
home was with God. So he marked the
occasion by setting up a pillar of stones and dedicated it to God and called it
Bethel which means ‘house of God.’
Here we have some clues as to what is a holy place;
it is where God has touched the earth with something of heaven.
It is a place which has a particular focus on the ministry and purpose of
God. It is a place where we
encounter God more intimately. They can vary from the Airport church in Toronto whose
message seems to be that of the God who cherishes us to that of
the shrine of Lourdes which speaks out the power of God to heal and do
miracles. Jacob, at Bethel,
hears the message that he belongs to God.
Holy places, whether they are shrines, our local church or some quiet
place in the countryside, help us
to sharpen the focus of our faith on the living God who wishes to draw us into
intimacy of his heart from which we emerge refreshed with wonder.
The
pain of hurting places
“The Lord said, ‘Listen!
Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground” Gen. 4:10
Cain
has just killed his brother Abel and God comes to challenge him about the deed.
What is so awesome about this passage is the fact that God literally
knows where the bodies are buried, listens to the story that goes with the deed
and challenges the living to do something about it.
Cain’s response is to run away from the site in an effort to forget it
and so the innocent blood of Abel goes on crying out its story.
God has not changed, he still challenges us with the unhealed stories of
our land and waits for us to do something about it. We cannot alter history but we can heal and deliver the
living from the consequences. It is
interesting to know that one of the definitions of the word “atonement” is
‘to deliver from the effects of.’ Consequently,
as Christians, we have a mission to bring the healing power of the death and
resurrection of Jesus to those places in our land where violent and tragic death
have scarred the landscape and the hearts of the people living there.
It would not seem strange to the grieving at all, as they place their
flowers of remembrance on such sites, that we join them in prayers of healing
for the place and the people affected by what happened there.
This is also true for healing places long associated with painful stories
and evil and which still have some power to upset or distort peoples’
attitudes. I have taken part
in healing services at the battle sites of the Boyne in the Republic of Ireland
and at the Somme in Northern France.
On both occasions they were opportunities to begin healing old tribal
animosities which still shaped the hearts of people who carried within them the
unhealed stories of their peoples’ history.
I am part of a group building a peace memorial park at Aughrim, the site
of the bloodiest battle ever fought between the Irish and English.
Here members of the Orange Lodge are planting trees in the name of
Catholics who died in the battle and Roman Catholic families are doing the same
for Protestant dead. It has
become a window through which the Irish look to understand about reconciliation
and healing.
Christian
signs of God’s times and purposes.
We must take seriously the subject of the human story and how it has and still does affect the location on which it took place. It would be careless of us to abandon such sites to become the haunts of demons. We must wake up to God who calls us to listen to the wounded stories that cry out from the ground. In listening we must also understand the story and how it still goes on shaping the present day community we seek to win to the love of Christ. Then by the power of the Holy Spirit we must act and literally touch the place with prayer and sacrament; the signs that God is at work to heal the land and make it more of a place for people to hear the good news that Jesus saves and redeems us from all the sins of the past into a future full of promise.