Stone of Help

Stone of Help

By Pastor Mike Von Behren

It was common in the ancient world for people to set up stones to commemorate significant occasions. Not just a stack of stones like a cairn used to mark a certain place, landmark, or trail. This was usually one enormous stone set upright, in an unnatural fashion, that would draw attention. They are often called standing stones. We find them in various parts of the world. Many contain carvings, or writings, that detail the event they commemorate. Others are fashioned with detail designs and intricately shaped. Yet others are plain, like the one in the image on this page.

In 1 Samuel 7, the people of God were gathered at Mizpah to pray and renew their covenants with the Lord. Samuel, the prophet, had invited them all to come. However the Philistines heard about this as well and thought this would be an opportune time to attack and kill all the leaders Israel at once. When the people of Israel heard they were coming, “they were afraid” (1 Samuel 7:7). Yet they cried out to the Lord for help and the Lord “thundered with a mighty sound that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion”(1 Samuel 7:10). So Samuel, “took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen and called it’s name Ebenezer, for he said, ‘till now the Lord has helped us’” (1 Samuel 7:12).

The name Ebenezer in Hebrew means, “stone of help.” As we near the end of our decade long Living Stone campaign, and now the capstone push of that campaign this fall, it will forever be for us a standing stone. It will be a reminder that “till now the Lord  has helped us.” There is no way we could have paid for this expansion of our facility, ten years early, except for the Lord’s help. What a blessing, yet every indication is we’ll get there. We’ll be able to pay it off by the end of this year through your generosity, which we know is truly from the Lord.

When the Living Stone campaign began we looked back at the previous three building projects Holy Cross, building our original building on Division St. in 1949, the building of this Holy Cross facility at Nevada St. in 1989, and the first expansion of this facility in 1994. Each time the Lord was with us and it was paid off early. “Till now the Lord has helped us!”

All these standing stones, point us to the Living Stone, Jesus who is the standing stone which will never again fall. He fell for us in his death, but he stands for us in his resurrection and remains forever the testament that the Lord is our help. He is our Ebenezer, our stone of help.

Perhaps you are familiar with the hymn  “Come Thou Font of Every Blessing,” whose second stanza begins “Here I raise my Ebenezer, hither by thy help I’ve come.” Perhaps you’ve wondered in the past what that meant. If so, now you know. Now you can raise your Ebenezer too!

In Jesus,

Pastor Mike