Sanctuary

When I was a boy I remember a man from our church weeping over the barred gates that “protected” our building. Like many buildings in South Florida the layout of the buildings were planned to face towards an open courtyard, similar to the quadrangles of colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. However, this style lends itself to security risks, which is why there were barred gates placed around the building. So why was this man crying? He was crying because those bars had to be there. He was crying that in a world of increasing pain and sorrow the one place he thought to be sacred was not.

Whereas the word sanctuary is most often attributed to a building or temple of worship it does have other meanings. One of which is a place of refuge, a place of uninterrupted security. In the Highlander movie the only place that these “immortals” could not kill each other was in a place of sanctuary. It is a sad commentary on our culture that these once sacred places, revered by even the worldliest, ungodly people, have lost that sacredness.

This fact has most recently and vividly come to my mind. This past Wednesday night, as my wife and I were attending a service with the youth of our church someone snuck into my wife’s purse and took her phone. At first we thought it was misplaced, but after seeing its use beyond the date it was discovered lost we knew someone had taken it. Sure we there is irritation at the person who took it, there is irritation that now someone’s selfishness is costing us more money, but the biggest frustration is that this happened at a “sacred” place.It is a reminder that our faith in Christ and our hope for his return is the only true security we have. 

So now as a man I join in with the weeping man.