The highlight of today for me was a pilgrimage to the burial place of Erasmus – about 20 miles from where we are staying – he’s buried in Basel, Switzerland inside Münster Cathedral. Lest you think I search out these places merely for historical interest I’ll just say I believe them to be as key portals and important places to pray for God to release these ancient breakthrough anointings on a new generation. The mantles on them are up for grabs today.
You can read Kaitlyn’s version of our long and tiring walk around Basel here. She has some great pictures of the church which is right on the Rhein River – great views. I’ll drop in an old sketch of what it looked like back in the day. (Actually things don’t look much different today – modern boats maybe is the most notable difference- comparing Kaitlyn’s pictures which were taken from the church makes this old sketch come alive for us. I put a yellow star at the base of the church on the spot where Kaitlyn was shooting pictures from.)
Basel is a key Reformation city – geographically it’s where three countries meet – France, Germany and Switzerland. I’ll also drop in a pic of Caleb and I at the pillar/tombstone in the church that sits over Erasmus’ crypt.
Desiderius Erasmus was spiritual father of sorts to both Zwingli and Luther. Someone once commented to him that he laid the egg that Luther hatched. Erasmus agreed it was probably true but commented that he thought a different bird would come forth. Makes me think about raising up the next generation and letting them go further in God than we were able to go, but that we must pass off a baton to them to run further with not pass them a box they have to fit into.
Interesting that Erasmus never really joined the Reformation but was the main forerunner of it. He lived through the Reformation period and consistently criticized clerical abuses in the church but thought it could be reformed from within. His translation work of the New Testament was foundational to open up the Word of God again for the people paving the way for Luther to give the German people a translation in their own language. Erasmus’ critique of a corrupt church served as seeds that germinated in guys like Zwingli and Luther. And, Reformation was the fruit that came forth. But Erasmus decidedly stayed with the old wineskin. He was like John the Baptist in that he was an anointed leader of the old wineskin who never went with the new. He let the ones who came after him increase and he decreased.
There are probably a hundred bishops and theologians buried in this one thousand year old church and, with all the tombstones being in Latin, it took me a while to find Erasmus. I asked a lady in the church if it indeed was his grave and she said, “Yes, he’s the only “Catholic” buried in this church.” I thought that was an interesting 500 year old jab.
Kristen put up a post this morning on how quiet it is here. I have some stuff brewing in me on the church bells that ring everywhere all day long. I’ll save those thoughts for later.
Ways & Means 
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Jun 17, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Steve Hickey
I had an email question today about my comment in this post about “portals” – thought it’d be beneficial to drop my reply here for all to see…
I have a long answer and a not so long answer but it’s a good question and I knew I’d get feedback on it. My story on this topic is that when I left seminary I had, what I call, no theology of the land. That is, I believed God related only to people and not places. But now I’m convinced he relates to the entirety of his creation. When I left seminary I didn’t notice in Scripture how much places mean to God, how he marks them, favors some places over others as related to what’s there or has been there. Idols, witchcraft, etc defile places, as does the shedding of innocent blood. Entire continents seem to be covered with spiritual darkness while other places seem to be under an open heaven (portal). Portal is a word that trips us up in the evangelical world because it’s more the verbiage today of new age and non-Christians mystics. But we find them in scripture like in Gen 28 which is the story that is our church’s namesake – angels ascending/descending – “how awesome is this place, this is none other than the gate of heaven.” We get our mission statement or whatever it is from that verse – we want to “establish places on earth where people can encounter the God of heaven.” In other words, there are things we can do that make a place as a landing strip for God on earth. There are numerous other scriptures I use to develop this, what I call, theology of place or land. Revelation ends with a massive earth to heaven portal if you will, the heavenly city touching earth. Bethel Mt Sinai, Mt of Olives, are a few places where heaven touches earth.
I have found that non-christian mystics/etc understand these real spiritual dimensions of place better than most Christians and they regularly interact with the dark side via these openings. The realm these folks tap into is not make-believe.
When I talk of a pilgrimage to a place like a reformers grave I’m not suggesting God doesn’t or can’t meet people anywhere anytime in more powerful ways that he meets people in these types of historical spots. I’m saying there is such a thing as sacred ground and one of those places is where the blood of the martyrs rests or the rest place of the faithful. Hope that makes sense. At home I have a file with a list of verses that I have amassed to develop what I’m calling a theology of the land and part of them relate to spots that are definitely enjoying an “open heaven.” There are some places in the world so “open” that the Declaration of Independence could be read and people would come to Jesus – in the Great Awakenings the revivalists talked about “holiness zones” that sometimes extended several miles from the actual revival meeting. People walking to the meeting would be overcome with a sense of their sin and fall to the earth repenting still being miles from the meeting and have never heard the preaching. My view is that God opened a portal of grace over a place. Long after that portal closes, I have seen folks in today’s prayer movement go pray it back open and the living water flows again. Lou Engle wrote a book on re-digging these ancient wells of revival. I once had a conversation with a denominational guy before I left the denomination about this – he thought I was goofy – but I showed him I was teaching nothing other than what they do every time they bring in the superintendent to dedicate a land at a church groundbreaking. They are setting aside a place for God to meet people. My contention is that if we had eyes to see into the spiritual realm we’d see that physical legal deeds to land provide the spiritual realm (good and bad) authority to occupy. The devil isn’t everywhere at once – he is very tied to places – and he can only roost where he has legal permission through our sin or our opening the door. And we can shut the door to him in these places and summon God instead in these places and I see these places as kingdom portals.
I guess this is getting long, I hope it’s coherent – you are getting what’s in my head. God can meet us anywhere and he does. Beyond that I believe there are places he loves to frequent.
Jun 18, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Pat
I totally agree with you. Being a resident of Pennsylvania and never interested in history growing up, I didn’t realize the significance of our state. Recently a local pastor and his wife wrote a book, The Seed of a Nation (Darryl and Laurie Fields). It’s all about William Penn (founder of Pennsylvania) and how he claimed this land to be “A Holy Experiment”. God is awakening His church in Pennsylvania and we are reclaiming our original intention. We are called the Keystone State, we hold the key of a nation! Our founding Father received permission from our mother land to make this place an experiment of what it would be like to live in covenantal love with all man, including the Indians. He was successful in everyway and the people of our state lived in Godly love with one another until his death. It was then, his sons broke the covenants Penn made with the Indians and began killing them.
Recently, a friend of mine went to the spot in Philadelphia where Penn’s Treaty was signed with the Indians. The signpost was all grown up with weeds, etc and it’s not seen or identified by most because it’s in a place of obscurity. But God is awakening people all over our state to pray again and declare as Penn, Pennsylvania belongs to the Lord. It was founded upon covenant and we are humbling ourselves, praying and seeking His face, turning from our wicked ways and we believe He is healing our land! We are seeing our democrat govenor invite prayer in our capital building (and he is Jewish). And it goes beyond our state lines (remember PA is right above our Washington DC) to our nation!!
In the fall, on an island in our state capital of Harrisburg, we will be holding “PA AWAKE”. Believers all over our state are uniting and “redigging wells”, reaccessing portals! We have seen openings here and there, we are believing for a open portal completely over our state!