Holy Ground

“Trembling and bewildered, the women went out from the tomb.” -Mark 16:8

Trembling and bewildered. That is the only honest response to what the women encountered and discovered that day in the tomb. It is now the only authentic response to what is revealed in us: that this same risen Jesus has come to dwell with us and in us.

Some of my favorite woods to walk in are nestled behind my childhood home about half a mile, down a steep embankment that extends about 200 yards through thick underbrush, and past an open field. Beyond this lies something out of Lord of the Rings. It is Fangorn, and walking in it I half expect to see an Ent or a Urukai come out from around the bend. It is beautiful and inviting and mythic. The forest itself borders a river that slices and sluices its way through the wilderness like a fledgling Amazon.

I know these woods well; I grew up exploring them and playing army with my brother and cousins in their dark mysteries and overarching canopies.

The long, endless summers of my boyhood days had gone down to the cool of early autumn, and I returned to the company of these old trees as a grown man. I had been drawn to this place by the Lord God. He had summoned me here in his fierce pursuit of my heart and desire to be near me. And he was after something else this day, I suspected. There was something else he wanted to say.

Near the river’s edge I found a large fallen sycamore to stretch out on and enjoy the surroundings and settle my heart into listening, into quieting down. “What do you want to say to me, Lord?”

Nothing. I waited. Nothing still. I waited longer. Still, nothing. The sun was now settling in for the night, and I could no longer stay. As alluring those woods are at day, they are haunting at night.

As I set out and walked halfway through and among those giants of the forest, I heard the Lord very plainly say to me, “Take off your shoes.” It was so clear that I dared not argue. I stopped and removed my shoes. The bare ground was cold and prickly with twigs and small rocks. I stood again, and waited. “This,” he continued slowly and emphatically, “is holy ground.”

Whoa.

As soon as I heard this, I burst into tears. I understood immediately that the holy ground he was talking about wasn’t the forest; it was me. Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. I think then and there I understood for maybe the first time that this was the invitation of the gospel: a completely new life, a new heart, and God himself living and moving and breathing inside with so much reality that our old life is as substantive as a shadow. We are invited into life with God.

St. Augustine of Hippo once stated that, “Jesus departed from our sight that he might return to our heart. He departed, and behold, he is here.” This is as bewildering and holy a reality as the empty tomb was for Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.

Trembling and bewildered, I stood there in my bare feet as the sun set in the west across the water, casting deep and distorting shadows across the pasture to the east. I saw a bit of my own shadow stretch across the barren earth, and I set off walking again, shoes and socks in quivering hand.