It seems it has always been God’s desire to invoke a gathering.
Not simply a meeting. There is a more amiable, genial sense to it, that believing ones should come together with purpose, partly for warm fellowship with themselves but mainly to gather round Him. Actually, it is He that gathers us, like a mother seeking out her children and bringing them to one place of refuge, hospitality and abudant life.
You can think of the simple fellowship of God walking with Adam in the cool of the day, or the bedouin warmth shared by God with Abraham as he reclined over a meal, or the bread and wine enjoyed amongst the terror of Sinai between the elders of Israel. All are evocative pictures of the intimate fellowship God chooses to have with us.
And so it will always be. Whether in Solomons great temple or the fleshy tables of our heart, he desires to dwell and gather us to Him. It is strange to think of this since we are naturally at emnity with Him and whilst His hand is not shortened, our sins have brought separation between us.
But it is stranger still that in order to create a gathering of the kind we enjoy today, He would ultimately forsake His Son. How incongruos and incredible. Forsaken that we might have fellowship. Wounded that we might know warmth. Made guilty that we might be gathered.
