Desolate. What image comes to mind when you hear that word? I tend to think of the center of Australia. It is a desert, but, for all intents and purposes, it is so teaming with life that it hardly fits the definition. Google’s definition comes out like this; “Deserted of people and in a state of bleak and dismal emptiness“. Well I don’t know about you, but that sound’s awful.
And that is the word that Jesus uses to describe Jerusalem, and correct a theological myth that God resides in a building built in God’s honour. God does not reside in the temple and God never leaves his people. They leave God. So God comes to them as a person. Desolation is a place void of God.
God wants no one to live there either.
Best abide in Christ. Plenty of life there.
Rev. Michael Duke
Kingston Uniting Church