Take Him to the Place

Is God sovereign over the little things?  I do so believe and I'll give you a personal instance.  I just told you how much I loved the YouVersion Holy Bible app because I could jump my readings to the current date if I had fallen too far behind so as not to get discouraged and just quit.  Well, I had done just that when I posted on 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21.  A couple days before, I had visited Costco and browsed through many books before choosing one entitled Jerusalem by Simone Sebag Montefiore (I thought it was purely fiction, but I particularly love historical fiction).  Had I not been sovereignly where I was in the Bible, I would have totally missed this tidbit I read last night from pg. 30 of the book.

"When David heard that the prince [his son Absalom] was dead, he lamented: 'Oh my son, my son Absalom, would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!'  As famine and plague spread across the kingdom, David stood on Mount Moriah and saw the angel of death threaten Jerusalem.  He  experienced a theophany, a divine revelation, in which he was ordered to build an altar there [see post].  ...One of the original inhabitants of the city, Araunah the Jebusite, owned land on Mount Moriah...."

and then the footnote on pg. 32:

"Where was the Holy of Holies?  This is now a politically explosive question and an intractable challenge for any Israeli-Palestinian peace deal sharing Jerusalem.  There are many theories, depending on the size of the Temple Mount which was later extended by Herod the Great.  Most scholars believe it stood atop the rock with the Islamic Dome of the Rock.  Some argue that this mysterious yellow, twisted cavern was originally a burial cave of around 2000 BC, and there seem to be folk memories of this:  when exiles returned from Babylon around 540 BC, they were said to have found Araunah the Jebusite's skull.  The Misnah, the compilation of oral Jewish traditions of the second century AD, calls it the Tomb of the Abyss, hollowed for "fear of any grave in the depths."  The Muslims called it the Well of the Souls, Jews and Muslims believe this was where Adam was created and Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac.  It is likely that in AD 691, the caliph Abd al-Malik chose the site for the Dome at least partly to create an Islamic successor to the Temple.  Jews regard the Rock as the foundation stone of the Temple."

Wow.  Not only do we expand that the threshing floor was the site of Abraham's intended sacrifice, David's sacrifice, and the threshing floor of our Lord, it was also the site of Araunah's grave, and potentially of Adam's creation. 

Like David, Jesus wept over Jerusalem seeing the angel of death threatening. "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were not willing." Over the altar of sacrifice loomed the angel of death, for both Jerusalem of 70 AD and Jesus before - the place of Araunah's grave was perhaps the place of creation, the threshing floor, and death - the Tomb of the Abyss, or the Well of the Souls - the dead burying the dead - ending with one stone remaining, the sure foundation of whom Isaiah prophesied.  

David, in what I believe was a prophecy, cried, "Would God that I had died for thee," regarding his son.  No wonder David has a heart after God's own heart.

The good news is that place of creation and death was also the place of a new creation - 2 Corinthians 5:17 reads, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:  The old has gone, the new is here!" Through His son's death and resurrection, a new and living temple, made up of every tongue and tribe and nation,  one that the gates of hell cannot prevail against, has arisen.  Truly Jesus came to offer life to all who would believe, but he didn't offer it to you based on the color of your skin, the religion you rest in, your gender, or, yes, even your sexual orientation, he offered it to all those who would die.  No partition.  Like the Samaritan woman, we might say, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman.  How can you ask me for a drink?"  Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water...whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."  

I do hope that as this song by Aaron and Amanda Crabb begs, you will Take Him to the Place.