An Evangelical Church in the Heart of Thatcham
Date:January 24, 2017

Endless brick walls

I still remember the day just as vividly as when it first happened 30 years back. We had just returned from honeymoon, woke up in the morning, went to open the front door and it had been completely papered over by our friends! That memory came flooding back when I read about the man who experienced a rather more permanent version of the same thing. This man, who lived in Mainhausen near Offenbach, opened his door only to find that someone had completely bricked it off!

The thought of not being able to go out, of not being able to mix with other people, is not one that many of us would cherish and God knows that He has made us as social beings. The Bible shows right at the outset that the first humans, by their sinful actions, chose to build a brick wall between themselves and their Maker. The honeymoon, there in that beautiful Garden of Eden was barely over. The joy of knowing God in a close and intimate way was fresh in their minds. Their custom had been to walk with Him in the cool of the day.

Now we might reason to ourselves that the first brick wall between us and God is not really that big a deal, after all we’re a pretty resilient people, we can get by without Him above. However, do we stop to consider the fact that when we built that first brick wall against God, we began a history-wide process of building endless brick walls, walls between us and our fellow man.

Yet all hope is not totally lost, for Jesus alone has the power to take down the brick walls, as Scripture says:

“He is our peace, who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility.”

This is a bright hope for a New Year: to see some walls coming down.