For forest of the image

Leviticus 26:1

Reward for obedience

26 ‘“Do not make idols or set up an image or a sacred stone for yourselves, and do not place a carved stone in your land to bow down before it. I am the Lord your God.

We are lost, we are displaced. Once more god’s people have been displaced from their chosen land. This is the land of the image, the land of man, the land of here today gone tomorrow. We were unfaithful to the lord, so his hand crashed down upon us, scattering his chosen people. He has scattered his chosen people so we feel as distant from him as we were from his perfect law.

The land we now reside in is not blessed nor is it peaceful. We get no rest nor do we succour. It is a land of shifting sands. There is no God, just end endless parade of egos, the people only worship themselves. They have no sacred space just a market place, they have no holy places just the cardboard place of the latest fad. At least the lands of the pagans held false Gods close to their hearts but these people have no room in their hearts for anything but themselves, for the work of their own hands.

How can we find God in this godless land?

How can we see your glory and hear your saving word Lord?

The devout man spak thusly. Turn you people of faith, turn to the scripture; and he read in a clear and unashamed voice from Psalm 104

24 How many are your works, Lord!
    In wisdom you made them all;
    the earth is full of your creatures.

29 When you hide your face,
    they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
    they die and return to the dust.
30 When you send your Spirit,
    they are created,
    and you renew the face of the ground.

31 May the glory of the Lord endure for ever;
    may the Lord rejoice in his works –
32 he who looks at the earth, and it trembles,
    who touches the mountains, and they smoke.

33 I will sing to the Lord all my life;
    I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
    as I rejoice in the Lord.

The devout man speaks to the faithful and the faithless.

Turn your eyes away from the forest of images; stop trying to outdo the works of God, stop trying to be Gods. Did not God bring down the great tower of babel? Did not God cause the light to be and the sea and the land to form? No work of your hand can out do God; no work of your hand can emulate the one true God. For God is not here on day gone the next, he is not faithless nor does he seek to be popular, there is nothing shifting in him, there is nothing which is unfaithful in him.

Look at the sun brothers and sisters; can we create anything compared to its glory? Look at the globe; can we make a machine as perfect as she is? Is there any work of man so perfect as these works of God? We cannot even comprehend this great work? How then we comprehend the God who made them? No sisters and brothers turn from your understandable tat, forsake that which is simple and entertains only for a short time and turn to the one Lord who mystery and glory will keep all your days full of wonder and glory. 

Above all my foolish people do not try to conquer God and imprison him in your false ideas and cheap arts. You can no more conquer the sun then you can conquer the one who formed all things. Once you forsake the image, once you forsake the lust for your own brilliance, then God who knows all, created all and in whom all is kept will embrace you. He will show you a life of meaning a life build not on shifting stand but the very rock of the earth.  Embrace the lord and you dimly see his true glory.