Is God on Vacation?

Last Sunday in Harvest, Alabama, they loaded god into an elaborately-decorated chariot. The short street along his route ahead was swept clean for his journey by the highest-ranking official present, Governor Bhandare of the state of Orissa in east India.

Where was he going? For a week’s visit to his old home, Auntie’s House, the old Church of Christ building a hundred yards away, remodeled several years ago into a Hindu temple before the larger temple was built in 2005.

Think of it as god’s yearly summer vacation. You go to the beach; he goes to Auntie’s House. Then when time is up, he’ll get back into the chariot for his ride back home, and in a ritual descent, enter the newer temple again.

But not without grief, for he left the wife at home during this vacation. And she’ll be none too pleased with him when he returns. She’ll shut the door in his face, and he’ll have to bribe the female gate-keepers before he can reenter their dwelling.

In the Hindu religion, this Festival of Chariots (Ratha Jatra) is wildly popular. The people celebrate in the streets, thrilled with the opportunity to glimpse their god outside of his inner sanctum. They are ecstatic as he rides past them in his chariot.

But I wasn’t there last Sunday to see his chariot go by. I was at another famous festival. A Christian one. One we gather for every Sunday.

We, too, celebrate that our God, Yahweh God, the One God, stepped out of His inner sanctum to come live in ours. We, too, are ecstatic that He journeyed away from His heavenly palace to enter our dusty streets so we could see Him.

But it’s no summer vacation for Him. He has taken up permanent residency in our hearts. His temple is our bodies. We have the pleasure of His presence every second, every day, all year round. In the Christian religion, how much more we have to celebrate!

For God “who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:24,25).

Because we are His living, breathing offspring, we know His divine being is not “like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by heart and imagination of man” (Acts 17:29).

Every day is a festival in Christ!

Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting!
And let all the people say, “Amen!” Praise the LORD!
~ Psalm 106:48