A special, extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is Acts 15:1-21 from the New International Version of the Bible.

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

In the future, when your son asks you, "What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?" tell him: "We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Before our eyes the LORD sent signs and wonders—great and terrible—on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land he promised on oath to our ancestors. The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness." Deuteronomy 6:20-25

Scattered from the community of the church in these days, it's more important than ever to stay faithful in the everyday of our lives. It's also a lot harder.

Without a worship gathering with the community at church, we've lost a good chunk of what gave rhythm to our week. Every rhythm starts with a down beat to kick off a new measure. The down beat of our weekly rhythm was Sunday worship—the first thing that happened to mark the arrival of the first day of a new week. Sunday worship together was the down beat that marked off God's weekly rhythm of grace, a reminder that God had faithfully seen us through the past week and had given us another week ahead.

But now we're scattered from the communal gathering of worship. The down beat has been lost, or if not lost—it's certainly gotten a lot harder to hear. Our weeks and our days flow into one another, out of sync and out of rhythm.

So it's more important than ever to keep the beat at home. To stay faithful to the rhythms of grace in our daily lives. But, as I said, without the big down beat of communal worship on Sundays to set the rhythm of the week, it's also a lot harder to find that daily groove at home.

Moses spoke these words in Deuteronomy to a people who likewise were about to be scattered from the communal drum beat of worship. They too would find it difficult to keep time in the rhythms of grace on their own. But, as we discussed in this past Wednesday's devotion, Moses told them how important it was to keep it alive at home. How important it was to talk about the ways of the Lord when you're sitting around and when you're on the go, when you go out and when you come in, as the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night.

Great idea in theory. Much like being told to just pray more or read your Bible. Sure, that'll work, but how do I do it? If I'm supposed to be carrying the rhythms of faith in my daily life, what does it look like?

Well, the Israelites must have asked Moses that question too, because he shows them what it might look like, giving just a little example. And as it turns out home rhythms look a lot more informal than Sunday worship. They look a lot more like a story. When your kids are having trouble understanding why you're watching a Sunday service online, or taking time out for prayer at the table, or asking them to apologize to or forgive their sibling: then tell a story!

If you're having trouble remembering why you're keeping these rhythms of worship or devotion or what they really mean anyway: then tell a story!

If a neighbour who sees you watching worship on your tablet in your backyard asks you what on earth you're doing: then tell a story!

We tend to beat ourselves up for not doing enough when it comes to our faith rhythms. Which means we that we either go through life as sourpusses or that we give up altogether because it's just too big a burden.

But then that's not a rhythm of grace.

The grace of the rhythm is that the rhythm is already grooving. The beat dropped at the dawn of creation and the trees of the field still clap along. God drummed His forgiveness and grace into the fabric of creation and our lives through Jesus and the Spirit long before most of us even knew how to talk. It's nothing you don't already have: the same old, old story of Jesus and His love.

So if you're having trouble finding the beat at home, start with the story. The story you already know. There's all sorts of places to start…

-God created the heavens and the earth… -God parted the sea and saved the Israelites from slavery … -David sure messed up a lot, but he was still a man after God's own heart… -Jesus came to show me that God was quite literally dying to love me…

My heart is filled with longing for your laws at all times (Psalm 119:20).

I remember a group exercise, probably some ice breaker, in which we were asked what we would like written on our tombstone. I have no idea why someone thought that would be a good icebreaker. Probably, to get into a conversation about legacy. It didn't seem a very helpful question to me at the time, and I still don't think so. A much more interesting question to ask is "What do people say about me right now?" but not as an icebreaker.

On Tuesday, I began a short series on David, the shepherd boy turned king. When the Bible introduces him, he is not introduced by name, but by what God says about him, 'a man after my own heart' (NIV) 'or a man who is dear to my heart' (NIRV).

That's high honour. But, as I said, no one defines what that means. So, for the next four Wilderness Wanderings, I want to reflect on what this might mean. This is a series about 'How are you doin?' How are our hearts doing? Are we able to sing, "It is well with my soul!"? How are we managing this time of COVID as it drags on? Dr. Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, has been mentioning that social distancing and mask wearing could go on for several years. It seems to me that our hearts need to be in good order, if we are to run this marathon.

Let's begin with what seems like the most obvious: obedience. As that famous phrase from Psalm 119 puts it, "I have hidden your word in my heart". In 2 Chronicles 16:9, we find this, "For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him." When David sings the glory of God displayed in both the creation and in God's law, he ends with this prayer, "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight" (Psalm 19). That great psalm about God's powerful and tender presence concludes with a prayer that God remove wrong from David's heart (Psalm 139).

We see David=s obedience clearly in the years before he becomes king. He does not grab the throne. God says, "You will be the next king." But David recognizes that God needs to remove the current king before he can take the throne. So even though Saul has been rejected because he disobeyed God, David continues to honour him as king.

David's obedience foreshadows a central characteristic of Jesus himself. He claimed to have come to do the Father's will (John 6:38). When on the cross he called out, "it is finished", he was declaring that he had been obedient to the end.

The pertinent question for us is, "How do we grow in obedience?" How do we become fully committed to God? Is it even possible to hum with the psalmist, "My heart is filled with longing for your laws at all times" (Psalm 119:20)?

When we try to get started on this path, we tend to try really hard. We look to ourselves to get there. I don't think that is what David did. In Psalm 19, David spends the bulk of the Psalm looking at what God has made and said. It is only when he has composed his praise, does he ask for a pure heart. We don't get a longing for obedience by looking to ourselves. When we see God and who he is, will our heart's get stirred.

So, where has your gaze been lingering these past four months? Is it time to look up again? As the writer of Hebrews once wrote, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus…" (12:2)

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).

I mentioned this before, but I've been struck lately by the absence of congregational worship from the life of the Old Testament. I mean, daily, weekly, and annual rhythms of sacrifice and prayer were always going on at the National gathering place of tabernacle and later the temple. And the weekly rhythms of Sabbath were ongoing in homes across the land. But there's no steady intermediate place. No church or synagogue where a community that was larger than one's household, but smaller than the whole tribe or nation would gather for a weekly service.

Much more emphasis was placed on the two anchor points at the extreme: on the one end—the central worship at tabernacle and temple where the rituals of confession, sacrifice, forgiveness, and praise were rehearsed, and on the other end—the decentralized worship that happened week to week in homes when the Sabbath was observed.

Here in Deuteronomy 6, the people are finally at the doorstep of the promised land. Their wilderness wanderings have come to an end.

For 40 years, they have been shaped by centralized worship. The tabernacle was pitched right in the center of the camp. Anyone could look down the row of tents to see it. Always—daily—the rituals were being rehearsed and repeated there again, and again in the sight of the people. Always—daily—the conversation with God was being kept as He and Moses spoke face to face in the tent of meeting. Always—daily—the people were on pilgrimage with their God and their God with them. The ordinary stuff of everyday life was entirely and visibly intertwined with the sacred realities of God among them.

But, they were about to be scattered.

Here on the plains of Moab, overlooking the promised land, Moses began to remind the people of what they would need most when they became scattered across that land. They would no longer be one big camp together in one place surrounding their central place of worship at the tabernacle—they would be scattered to their own homes, days away from each other. They might not see a priest or the tabernacle for months.

So, how would they stay faithful as God's people when scattered?

Moses gives some ideas right here: It's about staying faithful in the everyday ordinary stuff of life. To love God. To keep God and His ways not just on your lips, but in your heart. But also to keep God on your lips: telling of His stories and commands when you're sitting around, when you're on the go, when you're parenting, when you're going out, when you're coming in, when you turn in for the night, and when you get up the next morning. Make a note on your hand to remember if you have to.

The life of faith has to be lived where you are every day of your life. Especially when we're scattered.

Pastor Michael and I pray that these devotions have helped to make your faith walk an everyday part of your life. Keeping rhythms of faithfulness is hard to do when we're scattered from centralized worship and one day blurs into another. So, it's good to keep praying for and speaking with one another on ways that we can encourage each other to keep the faith where we are, each day of our lives.

"I have looked to you with all my heart" (Psalm 119:58).

"So, how you doin'?" That's a question you'll hear asked around this place. It's become an invitation to slow down and take stock. It doesn't allow for a generic, 'I'm fine' kind of answer'. Rather, the question is an invitation to reflect on the heart. How are things deep down in your soul?

Now, for those of you who don't know, the here, I'm referring to is Immanuel Church in Hamilton, ON, where these devotions are scripted and recorded.

The simple question, "So, how you doin?" pre-dates COVID-19. You see, Pastor Anthony and I become co-pastors at Immanuel in the fall of 2019. Neither of us had been in such a ministry arrangement before. "So, how you doin'?" became our invitation to each other to explore how well we were living into this ministry model so that we and the church could flourish. The question was never, "we have to talk" as much as, "we haven't had a chance to talk for a while, so let's make time."

During this COVID season it has also become an invitation to explore together what ministry should look like when all normality has fled. But at its core, it remains a question about the heart. Our text puts it differently, "I have looked to you with all my heart" (verse 58). How's that going for us? And, are we helping this church to do that?

These devotions, Wilderness Wanderings, were originally designed as a means for these two co-pastors to use the Word of God to shepherd this church through the COVID shutdown. Well, several months later the shutdown continues and these devotions have grown into more. You can find them on Spotify now. In my episodes, I have invited you to journey with Abraham and to dive deep into Romans 12.

Now, I invite you come with me to the wilderness of Judea in the dying days of Samuel's ministry and find a shepherd who will become king of all Israel. His name, of course, is David. This will not be a chronological study of his life, but a random sampling of his life and poetry. The entry point will be God's description of him before we even know his name. He is described as 'a man after [God's] own heart' (NIV) or 'a man who is dear to [God's] heart' (NIRV).

That's high honour. But what does it mean? Samuel doesn't say. God doesn't say. And David doesn't say. But I think, if we consider David's life and poetry we might come up with some plausible answers. Psalm 119 will be our guide. It's not likely that David composed this psalm, but, I have always considered it to be meditation on Psalm 19, which is attributed to David. Here is the middle part of that psalm:

The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous.

And then these more famous words, immortalized in a short song:

They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.

Some of you will know that Psalm 119 is very long, 176 stanzas long, each including a reference to God's word. What is not as well known, is that the word 'heart', also shows up regularly in this Psalm. A well-known example is, "I have hidden your word in my heart" (11). The late J.I. Packer, suggested this means that God's word is the core, the most important part, of our beings.

Our lives have changed. The world has changed. It can all be very unsettling. We may find it difficult to answer the question, "So, how you doin'?" Thus, I invite you to join me for several episodes of Wilderness Wanderings as we ask and answer that question, understanding that as Christians we do want to be people dear to God's heart. We want to be able to say with the Psalm writer "I have looked to you will all my heart" (Psalm 119:58); we want the word of God to be the core of our being.

Until next time, I invite you to consider what God meant when he said of David, "he is a person after my own heart."

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." (Revelation 1:8).

There are a few strange differences between our God and us. Well, more than a few! But a few I'm interested in right now, like these: God is infinite, but we are finite. God is omnipresent (He's present everywhere), but we can only be in one place at a time. God is eternal, but we are temporal. With our human bodies, we can only exist in one place at one time, and that only for a time.

It is these very bodily human limitations of being confined to one time and one space that has been transformed by the digital media we're using for worship these days.

All of a sudden the pastor that used to only be available at 10am Sunday morning (one time) at the church building (one place) is available anytime and anyplace if you want to have a worship service—even multiple times and places at once! Just go to YouTube, and there you find the pastor, ready to worship with you, together with musicians and readers who can also join you wherever and whenever you want them to.

But, lest we think we're becoming like God with our abilities to transcend the limitations of time and space, it's worth thinking about the cost.

Because on the flip side, it is a scattered worship service, recorded on different days in different places with different people, that goes out to a scattered people, who likewise participate in the worship on different days in different places and with different people.

In gaining the abilities to transcend time and space through digital media, we have lost the embodied nature of human community—that unique thing that can only be fully experienced in one place, at one time, with other embodied, three-dimensional human people.

So, what am I getting at?

Well, for now: digital worship is a huge blessing, allowing us to remain connected in common songs, prayers, and scriptures before our One God who was, who is, and who will be meeting us in that scattered worship, no matter when or where we participate. As the eternal God who is everywhere present, He's not thwarted in the least by our lack of a common time or place. He is with us in all times and in all places.

But our time and space transcending God—the God who is, and who was, and who is to come—is the very One who gave up His transcendence in order to take on our embodied limitations. He came in Jesus Christ to be born, live, die, rise, and ascend each in a single place at a single time alongside of real, human people.

The eternal Word became temporal flesh, the created-in-the-image-of-God kind of human flesh. Apparently, God's image and God's grace, love, and forgiveness were mediated to us better through the confines of time and space than through spiritual transcendence.

So, despite this coming to you digitally right now, I think God's grace is still mediated to us better through the embodied community of our fellow spacetime-limited image bearers than it is through the transcendence of our digital media.

If that's true, well then, maybe it's worth calling a friend or a neighbour over to your lawn or porch to safely participate in the songs, prayers and scriptures of worship with you this week. At one time. In one place. Trusting, that the transcendent God who was, who is, and who is to come still comes to us in the very embodied times, spaces and people among whom we gather when we worship and live day to day.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…Don't pay back evil with evil. Be careful to do what everyone thinks is right. If possible, live in peace with everyone. Do that as much as you can. My dear friends, don't try to get even. Leave room for God to show his anger. It is written, "I am the God who judges people. I will pay them back," says the Lord. Do just the opposite. Scripture says, "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. By doing those things, you will pile up burning coals on their heads." Don't let evil overcome you. Overcome evil by doing good (Romans 12:14, 17-21).

What do we do in the face of evil? This is the question that ends Romans 12. The question is not about evil out there somewhere. Paul is writing to the church about love. The full question is, "How do we love our enemies when they do evil to us"? This was not meant for human governments, but rather for individual Christians when people intentionally hurt us. Here is the answer: "Don't let evil overcome you. Overcome evil by doing good."

There is a recognition that evil is very insidious. It begins small, and if the trickle is not stopped, it will become a flood that fills us up. In the end, it will overcome us. Evil works that way. It grows. It begins with a thought, a flash of anger and builds until it bursts out of us.

Evil will grow and poison everything it touches. It is said that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre, were motivated by revenge. They felt mistreated, rejected, and abused, and this was a way of taking revenge and getting back—evil responding to evil, hate responding to hate. It was reported that they shouted as they entered into the building, "This is for all the people who made fun of us all these years," and then they laughed and opened fire. Those two allowed hate to take root in their hearts, and it grew until the fruit of it erupted in violence.

This idea lies at the heart of the epic fantasies The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Both of these stories also contain the Biblical antidote: love. How do we counter evil? By overcoming it with good.

Remember that we are talking about sincere love. This is the agape of God towards us. We don't deserve God's love, yet he gives it to us. God comes to us in the blood of Jesus and forgives all the evil we have done. He over comes the evil we commit with his goodness.

To overcome evil with good is God's master plan of salvation. His purpose is to reclaim His creation from the control of evil, transform it, and bring it back under the control of His righteousness. In other words, He will overcome the world's evil with His good. In following the command of Christ to "bless and not curse" (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:28) and by returning good for evil, we do as God does, and we become active participants in His great plan for the world.

We need to understand this. We also need to believe that this is true. Only if we believe this will be get Paul's invitation to "leave room for God to show his anger." Some have suggested that we ought to let God get revenge for us because "He can hurt 'em a whole lot worse than we can!" However, the wrath of God is never retaliatory or spiteful; it is always redemptive. God pursues the sinner, cuts off his escape, confronts her with the consequences of sin, chastises him, and makes her sin miserable.

Why? To bring to repentance. To give grace. To redeem our enemy as He has redeemed us. When we take our own revenge, we stand between God and His beloved. Furthermore, we take the Creator's place on the seat of judgment in the life of another creature.

Jesus experienced all the hatred and injustice and violence that the leaders of this world could pour out on him. He was victim of the mindless hate and the violence of the crowd and the Roman soldiers who had nothing against him personally but who used him as an excuse to vent the hatred in their hearts.

But Jesus did not take on and return their hate, and He did not let it change Him from His course of revealing the Father's love, His love even for God's enemies. Love is stronger than hate because hate enslaves, and the decision to love brings freedom. He forgave His enemies.

Christ, when he died by submitting himself to the hatred of his accusers, offered us a solution to the hatred and injustice of the world. Without him, it is eye for an eye and tooth for tooth. But now there is a new way. The way of love. This does not mean that justice has been abolished. But it means that we are relieved of the burden of justice. We can leave that to God. And we can love our enemies because God loves us.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

It is no secret that our world is increasingly polarized and conflicted today.

It's true South of the border. It's true here. It's true in other parts of the world. It's true in our politics. It's true in our racial identities. It's true in our wealth disparities. It's true in our immigration systems. It's true even in the church.

We are conflicted today. And we seem to be drawing on an increasingly shallower well to address these conflicts. Our attention span is shorter, our willingness to listen is lower, and our confidence in our own position is stronger.

What role do the children of God, walking as the contrast community of Christ play in such times as these?

We are those who know what reconciliation is, because we have been reconciled to God.

We are those who know what forgiveness is, because we have been forgiven by Christ. We are those who know what it means to have been welcomed into a place of belonging, despite our undeserving and our inability.

We are those who claim to the One who has broken down every dividing wall of hostility between races, genders, and more, bringing peace through His cross.

We are those who know what it is to have received love, mercy, grace, hospitality, joy, peace, and more. But our knowing and our receiving have not always translated into our living. Sometimes we are the ones who refuse to listen, who refuse to forgive, who refuse to humble ourselves, who refuse to confess when we've been in the wrong or wronged someone else. And yet the forgiveness of God in Christ through the Spirit comes to you and I yet again as the promise of peace is continually offered through the cross. Will you receive it?

Because a time like this calls for "little Christ's" (i.e. Christians). It calls for the children of God who come in open-handed humility with nothing more than they have received in Christ, ready to offer it through the Spirit for the healing of the nations and the blessing of the world.

So today: Is there forgiveness you need to seek? Forgiveness you need to give? A listening ear you could extend? Humility you could show? Unwarranted grace (gifts) that you could offer?

How can you and I be peacemakers in the humble, reconciling, forgiving way of Christ today, right where we are among the people we know best?

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1a).

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse…Don't pay back evil with evil. Be careful to do what everyone thinks is right. If possible, live in peace with everyone. Do that as much as you can. My dear friends, don't try to get even. Leave room for God to show his anger. It is written, "I am the God who judges people. I will pay them back," says the Lord. Do just the opposite. Scripture says, "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. By doing those things, you will pile up burning coals on their heads." Don't let evil overcome you. Overcome evil by doing good (14, 17-21). This week we finish our Wilderness Wanderings on Romans 12. Hopefully, they have helped some of you in living the central realities of our new life in Jesus Christ: to love sincerely. I have prepared two podcasts on these concluding verses. They can sound heavy and negative: 'Do not curse' (14); 'Don't pay back evil with evil' (17); 'don't try to get even' (19); and 'Don't let evil overcome you' (21). Yet, there are also positives slipped in: 'Bless those who persecute' (14); 'be careful to do what everyone thinks is right;' (17); 'leave room for God to show his anger' (19); and 'overcome evil by doing good' (21). Today, I will reflect on the possibilities of living this way; while, on Thursday, we will look at it from the perspective of God's justice and anger. The things in these verses may seem like a tall order. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches us that we have a natural tendency to hate God and our neighbor (A 5). That seems about right. As parents, we all observe that our children have a natural tendency towards getting even. Have you ever seen a three-year-old, when another child takes his toy, to offer a second as well? Hardly. The child immediately works to retrieve said toy, usually with violence. Darwinian evolutionary theory made popular the phrase, 'survival of the fittest.' This is a reference to species survival on the macro level. However, it seems to be equally true at the micro level of human relationships. Whether its children playing in the park or adults striving to get ahead in the workplace, we do not tolerate others doing us harm. Our immediate reaction is to seek retaliation. But God calls Christians to be different. This is one of the unique qualities of the followers of Jesus. Why are we not known for this? Why is it that after 2000 years of Christianity non-Christians do not identify the church as that group of people that 'doesn't seek revenge'? Romans 12 begins with a view of God's mercy, we offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to him. This conclusion, not to seek revenge, is lengthy because this is where we keep crawling off the alter! God wants us to return good for evil and we say, 'fat chance', we want justice, in other words, vengeance. In the course of life, we encounter truly difficult people–individuals who wound us, wrong us, betray us, and so make us want to strike back. Justice, we think, demands that they both know what they've done to us and get punished for it in some way. We believe that this is our right. Yet, as gospel people, a sincere love which forgives evildoers should be our response when we are treated badly. This is how we embody the gospel of our God in Christ: 'overcoming evil with good." This is what Jesus did in his ministry and, ultimately, in his death. Jesus met the evil of this world head on with love and grace, not balled-up fists and merciless judgment. Living in love and harmony with difficult and evil people is simply part of what it means to be caught up in the rhythms of the gospel. That's who we are as Christian people. It's wrong to get the greatest gift of God's grace and then turn right around and take revenge on others. The phrase 'my dear friends' could also be translated, 'my dear agape people'. Agape is that special, divine love that we get by grace alone. People who have been graced with God's agape can't turn around and live vengeful lives. Bad things happen. That is an unhappy facet to life in this world. The gospel calls us to absorb such evil, to show Christ to the world not just when doing that is relatively easy but to display the grace of Jesus precisely when it is most difficult. Society says we have a right to justice; to see the evil doer punished. The gospel demands something else. You cannot walk around as a living example of God's grace only to be someone who cannot forgive an offense. The only way into this life is to keep God's mercy towards me clearly in view. To remain sacrificed, to remain submitted to God's way instead of the world's system, requires something greater than natural strength. We can't do this on our own. But that has been Paul's contention all along, 'in view of God's mercy.' We have received; therefore, we can give.

Psalms like this one come to mind as real prayers in our Wilderness Wanderings outside the church building. "My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord." We miss the church building. The community that gathered there. The God who we met and worshiped together there. The font and table, pulpit and candle, beams and brick. It was the tangible place of gathering for worship and for community where so many milestone of our lives were marked. And we miss it. Despite texts like this one from Psalm 84 though, as I've reflected over these past months, I've come to realize that the Old Testament was largely written without a weekly worship service in a building in mind. There was only one Temple, one place of worship. And that, only later in the Old Testament under King Solomon. Before that it was a tent—the Tabernacle. Before that, there was nothing at all. Most Israelites did not live in Jerusalem or Shiloh though, and even when they did make a pilgrimage up to the tent or the Temple for the feasts three times a year: they were not permitted to go inside under the roof. They could only go as far as the outer courts to worship. So: worship at a structure only happened at most three times a year for the Israelites, and even when they did arrive at said structure, they couldn't worship inside it. So why did they long for this place if they'd only rarely saw it and had actually never stepped inside? Well, the answer is that in the Old Testament, the Temple was the one tangible place on Earth where God was said to dwell among His people. "How lovely is your dwelling place" the Psalmist says. This was the reason for awe and worship—the structure marked the dwelling place of God. But now in the New Testament world of the Christian faith we live—Jesus is the one who has "tabernacled" among us. He has become what the Temple was: Immanuel, God who dwells in the flesh with us. The connection point between heaven and earth. As the ascended Lord, He is now with us at all times and in all places, giving us of His Spirit so that we might be equipped for life, worship, and mission wherever we are. That doesn't mean that we don't miss the church building and all that it meant and represented and enabled though, because what is lost is that tangible experience of the body of Christ in action and in worship, gathered in the flesh in the same place at the same time. It's not really about the building, it never has been. We miss the tangible connection to our God in the face of His gathered people. And so, like the Israelites of long ago: our pilgrimage continues with the same longing in our hearts and the same song of prayer on our lips: