Down with the Walls, In with the New Year
Rev. Jeff Wood, First Presbyterian Church of Sebastian
WeLoveFirst.org & Facebook.com/welovefirstsebastian
It’s January 2025! Some time is more full of time than others. That’s true, I believe, for starts, like January. We jettison the past and we reach for the future. In the pivot from past to future, in Rome, every twenty-five years, there is the Ritual of Passing through the Holy Doors and it dates to the year 1500 A.D. It is a ritual full of time.
In the four major basilicas of Rome, the pope approaches holy doors that interestingly enough are bricked in. The walled off doorways represent that within us and between us that cuts off, closes in, and separates from. You know how this goes – the errant word that has a touch of meanness in it (“You, jerk.”), the selfish act (your gluttony before your partner’s need), the unintended neglect, the insensitive (or perhaps, contemptuous) look … and a relationship starts to have a wall. It may be our thinking that separates us even from ourselves – like chronic insecurity or jealousy. Or it may be our hostilities, the kind that turns into war, that keep us walled off and separated from each other.
In the Ritual of the Doors the pope takes a golden hammer and strikes the brick. Then the wall of bricks is shattered and the debris moved away while the pope moves through the doors. The hammer represents God’s grace, how he can break through our walls, dismantle our mistakes, heal our hurts, and reclaim those walled off places in human life.
As we reach forward, remember God has made a way through by his grace.
Pastor Jeff Wood, First Presbyterian of Sebastian, 1405 Louisiana Ave, 32958
WeLoveFirst.org facebook.com/welovefirstsebastian 772-589-5656
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