I've climbed inside the ancient man-made tunnels of the pyramids in Egypt. I've touched what could be one of the ancient trumpets that the priest blew before the Ark of the Covenant. I have even experienced the profound exhileration of standing atop the highest peak on the African continent - Kilimanjaro. Yet, what I just experienced twenty five miles outside of Bogota, Colombia rivals anything I've seen to date (except for the pyramids) - The Salt Cathedral in the small town of Zipaquira. The Salt Cathedral is an underground church built within the tunnels of old salt mines five hundred feet below the surface and is without a doubt a contender for the eighth wonder of the world!
The cathedral is a Roman Catholic temple which houses smaller chapels representing the "Fourteen Stations of the Cross." Each station represents, according to the Catholic Church, the fourteen important moments in the life of Christ from the point he is found guilty until he is buried in the tomb.
These fourteen chapels - each one an incredible feat of engineering in its own right - are dwarfed to the point of virtual non-existence by the massive cathedral which lies at the end of the salt tunnels. I am reminded of my inability to describe adequately my first moment at the base of the pyramids, the birth of my first child, or the moment when a text in the Bible truly comes to life! There are also no words to adequately describe the experience of allowing my eyes to focus on a truly wonderous feat of man's desire to honor God. This cathedral is easily as impressive to the eye as the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., St. Peter's Basilica, or even the great and cavernous essence of the cathedral at the Vatican. There are no ornate paintings and there are very few statues. Yet, at the front of the main cathedral is a fifteen foot rock-hewn communion table, a rock-hewn pulpit, and then, overtaking the entire front wall, is a fifty foot high cross carved into the rock. It was magnificant! In the background Gregorian Chants or reverberating off the walls in a surreal echo. Amazing!
I sat on one of the pews and began to speak aloud to God, ""Woe to me. I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." (spoken from Isaiah 6:5) I was entranced by the partnership of God's raw creation of the very mountain in which I sat and the people who carved this cathedral by the very creative genius of God within them.
What struck me even more was that God's creative genuis given to the people who created the cathedral is available to each one of us who call Jesus Lord! God desires to do these, and greater things, through us. We are the Temple of God! God no longer resides in structures of stone, even as magnificent as the stone structure in which I sat. No...he resides in his people! We are to build even greater temples by living lives in full submission to God. The eighth wonder of the world is not a Salt cathedral but in fact is a life lived for God!
What will future generations read of your temple? Will they sit in awe at God's creative genius expressed in your life or will they turn the pages of history possessing the chonicles of your life having found nothing to feast their eyes on, nothing to be challenged by, nothing from which to learn, nothing that points them from your life to God?
"One person fully devoted to God can do infinitely more than a thousand people who have simply been awakened by God's spirit." (author unknown) Will you build a temple that forces people to stand in awe of God?
Carpe Deum! (Sieze God!)
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