DirtPosted by Rick on March 11th, 2010
I thought that if I just threw a post out, it might get my blogging flowing again. I’ve been trying to figure out if I really have anything to say. I thought maybe I could write something about Lent, but I feel like I’ve already talked about Lent a lot on here. Rather than blankness, the word “dirt” keeps coming to mind. So, why not? Dirt is kinda Lenten. I mean, after all, Lent is when we remember that we are dust and to dust we will return. So, we’ll start with dirt.
One doesn’t have to go very far before seeing dirt in the Scriptures. In the first chapter of Genesis, God separates the waters by an expanse, or firmament, and then gathers the waters under the firmament, so that dry land appears. What we’re left with is dirt and water (where the Spirit hovers): “And God saw that it was good.”
By the second chapter of Genesis, “the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” So human beings are basically piles of dirt infused with “the breath of life” (i.e. the Spirit of God). “Adam” literally means “of the dirt.”
God sets Adam, a pile of dirt, in a garden (a place where life springs up from dirt). This garden is on another huge pile of dirt—a mountain. We can discern that the garden is on a mountain because of our other prominent element—water (Spirit), which flows down in four rivers.Since four rivers went out from Eden, it is safe to say that Eden was elevated, and that the garden, though not at the top of the mountain, was on the mountain.
Furthermore, mountains play a significant role in the Scriptures, for they are where God meets His people. As James B. Jordan points out, “Abraham offered Isaac on Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:2); Moses received the law on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19-24); Elijah defeated Baal on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18) and received his commission renewed on Mount Sinai (1 Kings 19); Jesus preached His definitive sermon on a mount (Matthew 5), was transfigured on a mount (2 Peter 1:16-18), and gave his final great commission on a mountain (Matthew 28:18-20).”
In addition, Jerusalem is set in the Judean Mountains, Mt. Zion is God’s holy hill, the Church is a city on a hill, and St. John views the New Jerusalem coming from above while “carried… away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high.” In contrast to the Judeo-Christian faith, false religions offer “high places” to replace God’s true meeting places. In short, mountains are ladders to heaven—points where heaven and earth intersect, and God meets us.
Moreover, altars are little mountains and ladders to heaven: “Abraham’s altars were probably just pillars made up of stone and earth, but what they symbolize is set out for us in an important vision in Ezekiel 33.” Ezekiel describes a pyramid with the top part literally called, “the Mountain of God.” Throughout the Old Testament, these altars grow until they fill the whole earth. As such, the whole sacrificial system is about meeting God and communing with Him—a movement from earth to heaven—and heaven eventually overtaking earth.
In the same vein, Moses builds an altar at the foot of a mountain. This altar serves as a gateway to God. The sacrificial order set out in Leviticus 1-3. An adam brings the bloody sacrifices near, and in union with the animal goes up to God, offering the Tribute through his accepted soul (nefesh).
The Mosaic Tabernacle structure also serves as a type of heavens and earth. The Holy Place would symbolically be the midpoint of the mountain where the elders (lampstand/Aaronic priesthood) would commune with God in a meal (facebread). Only the high priest would be allowed to enter the Most Holy Place, the top of the mountain. The Temple at Mt. Moriah would have similar connotations. Mountains are about worship. Dirt is used for worshipping.
We are homo adorans – worshipping man – precisely because we are dirt. We are ladders to God. We are altars—living sacrifices. We are tabernacles, where God dwells. We are temples, and the Holy Spirit is in us. We are part of the Holy Mountain, the Sacrifice, and the one true Temple. So we are dust, and to dust we shall return…but only for a little bit.
That’s all the dirt I got for the moment.