Good Morning Friends,
Today’s scripture explores the nature of God’s Temple and God’s Sanctuary both in our hearts and minds, and on the altars of the world cleansed and redeemed for a holy purpose. It truly is a wonderful picture of hope if you believe and a frightening thought as well. For it gets personal when we realize that we are not just the called-out assembly, but our very bodies are temples for the Lord and witnesses to Christ at home in us. So, Are We Really Serious About Cleaning Up God’s Temple In Us As A Sign For Others?
Scripture: Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there, water was flowing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and the water was coming out on the south side. He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh. Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes. On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”
Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12 (NRSV)
For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17 (NRSV)
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
John 2:13-22 (NRSV)
Message: All four Gospels tell the story of the cleansing of the temple, but the Synoptics place it near the end of Jesus’ life, and it provokes the chief priests and scribes to plot to kill him. John’s Gospel places the cleansing at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and the raising of Lazarus is the precipitating event for his trial and crucifixion. John, I think wanted to introduce a Passover theme and an emphasis on Jesus’ death and resurrection early in his Gospel right after the Wedding at Cana and the turning water into wine. In John’s view, Jesus’ life was not taken from him, but he laid it down of his own accord. So, do not be confused by the timing of the story. In Hebrew thought chronology was more spiral than linear. Synoptics emphasize more of the history of Jesus’ life and John emphasizes more the theology behind his life. It would be more in character for John than for the Synoptics to move the story out of sequence, and it seems likely that he did so to establish important themes at the outset of his Gospel. Of course, it is also possible Jesus cleansed the Temple twice before the Passover celebrations as a sign of the second coming. But perhaps the more fruitful approach is to experience the message of the Spirit in us beyond time. In our passage today from the prophet Ezekiel the motif is of a river flowing in the abode of God… Paradise… a new creation. So, meditate on the scripture and let it reveal to you that the river is not just the Jordan flowing though Israel as a visible sign to the world of God with us but in our very blood and breath and life in Christ. Friends, our bodies are Temples for Christ to reside too. And Jesus desires to clean up our temple for better worship as well. And anything that collectively walls us off from connecting to the rest of society in our commission or even gives the perception of a barrier to Christ needs to be removed or transformed. We need to look at our lives and what in them connects to and demonstrates the power of the love of Jesus in redeeming us and yes sometimes that needs to be tough love that turns things upside down if need be. The Spirit of the original church was radical and so too our temple may need a makeover to kick out the burdens and preconceived notions of worship and our ways of analyzing and determining limits on how God can use us for a holy purpose. Friends, worship is not to be a value proposition where we calculate what we get out of particular way of worship. Worship is not to be an exchange of getting something out of the experience in return for an annual pledge. The Spirit is not so much transactional as transformational. Every worshipping community should be a response to what God has already done for each of us. Coming and participating in our collective body of believers is therefor about surrendering to the Lord through our obedience, praise, and service to and for Him. It’s not about us. But it is about what God is doing in and thru us as a sign to others.
And So, it may be our bodies and it may be the world we live in, but it still belongs to God. We have indeed been bought with a price. And it was not perishable things by which we were redeemed. It is the life of Jesus Christ who was ordained before the foundation of the world to set us free to glorify God. And because the Holy Spirit resides in us, therefore, we are to honor God as part of the Body of Christ. Now, if God meant simply to convey the idea that the Spirit lives within the believer, He could well have said we are home to God. But by choosing the word, temple, to describe the Spirit’s dwelling, scripture conveys the idea that our bodies are the shrine, or the sacred place, in which the Spirit not only lives, but is worshiped, revered, and honored. Therefore, how we behave, think, and speak, and what we let into the temple becomes critically important as well, for every thought, word and deed is in God’s view. So too the world, as God’s Sanctuary, seems to convey a similar image for our collective worship. God expects all creation, both the visible and the invisible to become alive in the purity, power, prayer, and praise of God. We are to experience this life not just as isolated particles but as waves of power, not just as individuals but collectively. And that is why God cleans our house so our hearts and minds can be raised up as a new Temple and sign to the world. Friends, it is a bit of a prophetic mystery, but my reading of today’s scripture encourages me to believe that all believers and all creation will ultimately live by the Spirit and in the Spirit be in unity as an abode of worship redeemed. And that beautiful picture of resurrection is the very nature of love that should move us to worship with a purpose and reveal God’s glory in us. Indeed, Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.
Pray we turn over the keys of our temple to Jesus. Pray we realize that we have been consecrated for a holy purpose of bearing fruit in and through worship. Pray we realize that God dwells in each one of us and that seed of faith and the Word made flesh can bear much fruit. Pray we do not grieve the Spirit. Pray we live by the Spirit worshipping God with our every thought. Pray we no longer gratify the desires of our sinful nature but instead be part of a redeemed creation for God’s glory. Pray we are conformed to the image of God. Pray we are transformed by the purity, power, purpose, prayer, and praise of God. Pray we are transformed by Jesus and cleansed so that we might be a home of worship that glorifies God. Pray belief is awakened in us. Pray we get the connection between the story and belief. Pray we stay on task to the Glory of God seen in us.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 