Life with God, with the Word, is certainly never dull.  God is infinitely creative and He seems to delight in casting Light on His Word in myriad ways.  For example, I kept running across references to the crevice in a rock – so much so, that I finally surrendered and started searching for its meaning. 

What is this crevice?  I remembered Moses asking to see God's glory, the fire of His divine Presence.  After all, they had a special relationship.  The Lord would speak with Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend (Ex 33:11).  And Moses was discouraged:  he had just gone up Mount Horeb to receive the law, and the people had turned to idols instead of waiting on God.  Moses needed help to carry out his mission.

God agreed with that and said to him on Mt Horeb, “Here is a place beside me.  You must stand on the rock, and when my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and shield you with my hand while I pass by (Ex 33:22)”.  How tender:  God also wanted to deepen their friendship but he knew Moses couldn’t survive a full encounter. So he placed him in the dark cave, shielded him with his hand, and allowed him to experience as much glory as he could bear.  Even at that, Moses' face was so irradiated with God’s glory that he had to don a veil to protect his people.  The cave: a place of encounter with God.

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Elijah's experience in the cleft also came after a failure, an impasse.  To show that his was the only true God, he arranged for a “showdown” on Mount Carmel with 450 prophets of Baal.  These prophets spent half the day feverishly calling on their god to bring down fire to consume their bull offering. But to no avail. Elijah's prayer to the true God, however, was immediately answered with fire even though he had doused the altar with water three times (that was rubbing it in, really).  Not only that, God honoured Elijah's plea for rain to end the drought that had plagued the land.  This triumph did not bring glory to Elijah, however, but a death sentence.  He had mocked the priests of Baal, and had ordered every one of them to be slain.  Jezebel was out for his blood.

Elijah fled into the wilderness until he finally fell on the ground, exhausted and despairing. He prayed for death. Instead, an angel strengthened him with food and water and then led him into the crevice at Mount Horeb, where he spent the night.  Then the Lord went by in an astonishing way.  He came, not in the gale wind or the earthquake or the fire which had previously been signs of His presence, but in the sound of a gentle breeze.  And when Elijah heard this, he covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. After an intimate encounter with God, Elijah was ready to be sent out with renewed mission.  The cave:  a place of protection, strengthening, commissioning.

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There was another cave hewn out of rock:  Joseph of Arimathea's tomb in which Jesus was laid.  This tomb was sealed by another large stone at the entrance.  The darkness was complete. Human life was at an end.  Jesus lay shrouded in death and seeming failure.  But at that nadir, a flash of glory, Resurrection life, burst the chains of death.  Our Lord burned through the shroud, descended into hell and breathed Life into the faithful ones who had been awaiting His coming.  A new pathway to the glory of God was blazed for us all.  The cave:  a place of Resurrection.

God is a rock and there was a cleft in Jesus’ side where the soldier pierced him with a lance.  Did you ever wonder why Jesus’ resurrected body still bore the scars of suffering?  True – those wounds were transfigured and glorified, but he could have presented a perfectly whole body.  But by His wounds we are healed  and the disciples needed to see and touch this reality.  Thomas had been so devastated by the death of Jesus that he could not dare to hope he was truly alive.  “Unless I see the holes that the nails made in his hands and can put my finger into the holes they made, and unless I can put my hand into His side, I refuse to believe,” he insisted.

Jesus understood.  When he appeared to Thomas he said, “Put your finger here: look, here are my hands.  Give me your hand; put it into my side.  Doubt no longer but believe.”  I don’t hear reproach in Jesus’ words, but a joyous invitation to truly believe the Good News.  Thomas’ proclamation of faith burst from the core of his being:  “My Lord and my God.”  The crevice in His side:  a place of faith, hope and healing.

This cleft is the birthplace of the Church, as signified by the blood and water flowing from his side.  It is a place of reconciliation.  As St Bernard wrote, “They pierced his hands and feet and opened his side with a spear... what can I see as I look through the hole? Both the nail and the wound cry out that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself... Through these sacred wounds we can see the secret of His heart, the great mystery of love.”  

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When we long for a deeper encounter with God; when we are felled by failure and futility, when we cannot carry on without a strengthening and recommissioning, we can plunge our hands and indeed our whole being into the deep cave of Christ’s heart and wait for His love to revive us. 

And when we are ready, we will hear the voice of the Bridegroom calling to us as in the Song of Songs, “Come then my love...see, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone... my dove, hiding in the clefts of the rock, in the coverts of the cliff, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is beautiful.”