Meditations from Zion

Acts 1:19
And all the residents of Jerusalem became acquainted with the facts [about Judas], so that they called the piece of land in their own dialect–Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.

The Field of Blood was also called the Potter’s Field because some believed it to be the same place that Jeremiah visited the potter. “So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.” [Jeremiah 18:3-4]

Akeldama was used as a burial ground for “foreigners,” for strangers, and for betrayers. This is one of the hardest truths in the Bible for me: some people are destined for evil, some are destined to be buried in the Field of Blood, some are destined to be a marred pot.

God integrates evil into our lives and from these experiences, we grow, we change, we adapt, and we learn. These are the hard lessons of life. But what of the one who is the tool of evil?

Is there a moment in that life when he/she has a choice? Can this destiny be aborted by faith? Can the one turn and cry out for mercy? Or is the the mercy extended only after the fact? Is it forgiveness that brings a destiny of evil around to hope?

I don’t know the answers.

From my few years working with a potter’s wheel, I know a pot can be re-fashioned with the same clay… but only up to a point. Eventually, the clay becomes hard, unwieldy and unusable. Usually, a potter will not throw out the clay until it’s hopeless.

Keep me pliable today. Give me mindfulness toward those who struggle with their destinies, that they might turn before Akeldama becomes an unavoidable fate.