There is a powerful passage in the book of Ezekiel, where God questions why He ought not destroy the land, as His people have turned against Him.
He observes: “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one” (Ezekiel 22:30).
The thought here is that Ezekiel had a role to play in the outcome of his nation and its future. It recalls Abraham pleading for the people of Sodom in Genesis 18, before it is destroyed. He stands in the gap, before God, pleading and seeking a way for the fate of Sodom to be avoided. Moses ‘stands in the gap’ on behalf of the people of Israel following the incident where they worship the golden calf and incur God’s wrath (Exodus 32). As a result God does not fully destroy the people. Of course, Jesus comes and stands in the gap for us by taking upon Himself all that has kept us distant from God.
So I am wondering, who will stand in the gap today? Who will ‘stand in the gap’ for the voiceless or powerless, the lost and broken? Who will stand in the gap for children whose childhood is robbed by corporate interests peddling their own versions of life fulfilment? Who will stand in the gap for our young people searching for identity, for the suffering, the grieving, the broken, the lost? Who will stand in the gap for the abused and the abuser? Who will stand in the gap for the persecuted or for those gripped by the love of power and control?
I was reading through the week how the people at ‘Family Voice Australia’ made a federal court appeal against the release of a movie on DVD on the grounds that it had already been banned from all cinemas in Australia owing to the explicitness of its content. Their appeal was lost, and they are left with a bill of $15,000, and a movie not deemed appropriate for Australian audiences (and, let’s face it, something would have to be remarkably bad to get banned in our nation), can now be purchased for viewing in homes.
In The Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis makes the point that pleasure is God’s invention, not the devil’s. The devil can only take the good things God has made and twist them or distort or pervert them into something other than they were designed to be. Love and sex, food and family, health and laughter, work and play, wine and worship, are all God’s good idea, yet become twisted for other ends. To stand in the gap is to see these good things as they can be in God’s good kingdom.
Who will stand in the gap today? As a church and as followers of Christ, that is our calling. What might that look like in your life right now? Who could you stand in the gap for? “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Ps 33:12).