Saturday, February 10, 2024

The Temple

 Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days....(John 2:19)

And the apostle adds a comment:  By this He meant the temple of his body....

For the Jews, the temple was the center of life -- spiritual, yes, but also political, moral, social, educational.   When Jesus proclaimed, "The kingdom of God is among you," the Jews would have heard four things:  (1)  The 12 tribes would be gathered and re-united; (2) all nations would come to the temple of the Lord and "beat their swords into plowshares" ;  (3) the Temple would be cleansed, and (4) God would at last defeat His enemies.

By this He meant the temple of his body.....  In Jesus Christ, the Temple is restored and remade.  But there is more....St. Paul tells us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6).  The Complete Jewish Bible puts it this way: Don't you know that your body is a temple for the Ruach HaKodesh who lives inside you, whom you received from God?

The Ruach HaKodesh in Hebrew is the expression of God's breath (Ruach- spirit, breath, wind), the Spirit of holiness, of restoration, of renewal.  In the beginning, the Ruach -- the Spirit, the breath, the wind of God hovered over the chaos and spoke: LIGHT: BE!  And order, light, harmony began to re-fashion the abyss.  

With the Resurrection of Jesus, that Ruach  -- the breath of God -- returned to the earth, hovering over the chaos -- and began to restore harmony, order, and light.  The Temple of the Living God was established in the Person of His Son, and now all nations would stream to Him, beating their weapons into plowshares.  And we too, who are His temples because we have in us His Ruach HaKodesh -- His Spirit, His Breath -- are the sources of His Re-fashioning of the earth.  

Genesis tells us that we are made in His Image and Likeness because He breathed His Breath/Spirit/ Ruach into us.  And St. Paul in Galatians 5 tells us what that image and likeness consists of: The fruits of the Spirit are these: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, long-suffering, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  These are the marks of the Spirit/ Breath of God/ Ruach dwelling in His temple.

Our world today is characterized by chaos.  But the Spirit of Jesus is in us to re-make that world, to cleanse it and restore it to the Temple of the Lord.  The Lord once allowed me to see myself (and others, also, of course) as a temple.  The outer courtyard was the courtyard of the Gentiles, who were welcome to enter there to pray to the God/Yahweh of the Jews.  The inner courtyard was for the Jews, the believers in the true God -- the place of acceptable sacrifice and true teaching.  The Holy of Holies was the dwelling place of God.

As we create space for all who enter our lives -- the courtyard of the Gentiles -- we draw them into the Presence of God through the Spirit who dwells in us and through the fruits of His Presence: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, long-suffering, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.  When we worship together with those who have the Spirit of God dwelling in them, we enter the courtyard of the Jews -- the believers in the One God.  And in the Body of Christ, we enter into the Presence of God -- the Holy of Holies..

From there, the nations will be united and beat their weapons into plowshares, God's enemies will be defeated,  and the earth will once again become a Temple where people will gather in peace and God will dwell among His people.


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