Don't Stand So Close To Me

In their setting of their threshold by My thresholds, and their post by My posts, and the wall between Me and them, they have even defiled My holy name by their abominations that they have committed. There I have consumed them in My anger. – Ezekiel 43:8

God likes His space. Despite the multitude of stars, space is mostly, well, space. Detachment is an essential principle in knowing God. We usually call it separation, being set apart, or in more technical terms – holiness or sanctification. Back in high school, I wrote a bit of doggerel that summarized my understanding at the time: Detachment is wondrous; involvement is pain./ It’s better to watch than be caught in the rain.

What I didn’t realize, of course, is that detachment is not the opposite of involvement and that separation meant, often, living in the rain. At that same time, I had pinned to the wall in my bedroom a copy of Ecclesiastes 1:18 – “For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”

Wisdom and holiness are closely related. Even in the most mundane things, we gain insight by “stepping back” either physically or mentally. We say that we “turn a problem over” in our minds and look at it from a different perspective. We speak of being too close to something to clearly understand it.

This helps to understand why the Bible talks about the “fear of God” – which is the beginning of wisdom. In order to know God, we must have some distance, respectful distance, you might say, from Him. You can get too close, too familiar, too attached to your piece of the Rock, and you lose perspective on the whole. There are groups of Christians -- or people who call themselves Christians, who get so heavily invested in some tiny point that they become all but demonic. The members of the Westboro Baptist Church – those misguided souls who protest the funerals of fallen servicemen – come to mind.

It’s another of those biblical paradoxes that in order to draw near to God we must give Him some room.

Once we have come to that understanding, we find this passage applies in a different way as well, for we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We can’t let the things of the world get too close to us. We need space, a buffer around us. If the world presses in too close to the temple, our light cannot be seen by those who crowd around us. The vertical element doesn’t help here. It’s like entering the downtown canyons of a major city. You can see the tops of the skyscrapers from miles away, but once you are down on the streets, it much harder to figure out where you are. We need the horizontal separation as well. Holiness is not some whim God has. It serves a critical purpose. We are called to be a “peculiar people”, different than the secular sleepers who surround us. He wants us to stick out like sore thumbs.

Under Joshua’s leadership the Israelites were to follow the Ark across Jordan and into the Promised Land, but in order to go the right way, they had to give it space, allowing it to be seen by all.

And they commanded the people saying, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God and the priests the Levites bearing it, then you shall remove from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Come not near unto it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way heretofore” (Joshua 3:3-4)