The Loss of the Sacred: Holy Places, Dark Places

"And Jacob awoke out of his sleep, and said, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.' And he was afraid, and said, 'How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.'" Gen. 28:16-17

For the Hebrews, "house of God" was not a mere term; it was a truth about reality. It was no mere sign divorced from concept; it was the concrete declaration of a meta-physical actuality. For them, the "house of God" (the tabernacle/temple) was the intersection of Heaven and earth. There, the presence of God literally dwelt in the Holy of holies, meeting every year with the High Priest to atone for the sins of the people. It was a sacred place, and thus still dreadful and awesome.
Now, however, the house of God is merely a building for social gatherings, buildings that litter our countryside with all the frequency (and presence) of fast food joints or coffee shops, or any other trapping of American consumerism. Going to church is like going to a rally (or the mall, or a concert, or a press conference, or work), and picking a church is like picking shoes: whatever fits me best. The dread, the mystery, the wonder, the sacred, is gone. We go to church to meet and make friends (or a spouse), increase in head knowledge, receive encouragement, maintain our social status; anything except to meet with God, a thought that probably never even crosses our minds. A "den of thieves" indeed (Matt. 21:13).
In the old days of Christendom, churches were not littered everywhere, and thus they were still considered special and sacred things. Worship was a set and established affair, the same in almost every church, because its purpose was to praise God and prepare you to meet with Him, not to please your emotional needs and aesthetic preferences. The Eucharist was (and is) about meeting with God, face to face, and (from a Roman Catholic view) in the flesh. Views on salvic purposes aside, the common idea was that the whole of believers, by the right of the atonement, could now step into the Holy of holies and stand in the presence of God. Think of that! Even the Hebrews did not have such a privilege, but now we do by the blood of Christ. Yet now even the "Lord's Supper" is reduced to a mere event, one of many, of the social gathering. Who knows what varied reasons we have for partaking of the bread and wine; I doubt they have anything to do with stepping before the presence of the Living and Holy God Almighty.
It used to be that holy places were "dark places" (as Mr. Lewis put it), places of mystery and wonder, of holiness and dread, where God met with man face to face as friend does to friend. Now it is not so: we have thrown open the windows and aired out the rooms, cleaned up the blood and put out the fires, and have consequently suffered a loss of the sacred. We sing songs to our emotional gratification, eat the crackers and grape juice without flinching, have sorry feelings for our sins, and head back into the light of day as though we had done no more than taken a trip to the grocers rather than having just left alive, by the blood of Christ alone, the dreadful place, the gate of heaven, the house of God.

Lord, have mercy on us.

-Jon Vowell