Last week we reflected on Jesus' ascension and among other things we explored heaven on earth suggesting that heaven is not spatially or geographically located in a particular place that you could go to, albeit we might accept that Jesus is the way there!
It is perhaps more helpful to think of heaven, God’s sphere, as operating in a different dimension. Occasionally the curtain is pulled back and certain people have an apocalypse of the reality of God’s realm and how it operates within the earthly realm, our domain.
One of the places where heaven and earth was considered to meet was the Temple in Jerusalem.
David’s son, Solomon built the first Temple in Jerusalem. David had captured Jerusalem and made his capital.
We read about the dedication of this Temple in I Kings chapters 6 – 9 and 2 Chronicles chapters 2 – 7.
A recurring motif is that of the LORD’S Shekinah Glory filling the temple.
1 Kings 8:10 -11
‘When the priest withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the LORD. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled his temple.’
God’s Shekinah glory filling the Holy Place - has Isaiah 6 popped into your head?
This First Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II after the Siege of Jerusalem of 587BC. The beginning the Babylonian Exile. Jeremiah is your go to prophet to pick up that story.
Empires come and empires go and in the first year of his reign Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, another empire in ascendancy as Babylon declined, was prompted by God to decree that the Temple in Jerusalem should be rebuilt and that such Jews as cared to might return to their land for this purpose.
In 515BC the rebuilt Temple is dedicated under the leadership of the Judean governor, Zerubbabel.
We read about this in Ezra 6: 13-18.
Then, because of the decree King Darius had sent, Tattenai, governor of Trans-Euphrates, and Shethar-Bozenai and their associates carried it out with diligence. So the elders of the Jews continued to build and prosper under the preaching of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah, a descendant of Iddo. They finished building the temple according to the command of the God of Israel and the decrees of Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes, kings of Persia. The temple was completed on the third day of the month Adar, in the sixth year of the reign of King Darius.
Then the people of Israel—the priests, the Levites and the rest of the exiles—celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy. For the dedication of this house of God they offered a hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred male lambs and, as a sin offering for all Israel, twelve male goats, one for each of the tribes of Israel. And they installed the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their groups for the service of God at Jerusalem, according to what is written in the Book of Moses.
This Temple is an extremely poor shadow of the First Temple and has several missing key elements.
No Ark of the Covenant, so the Holy of Holies was empty.
In 1 Samuel chapter 4 we read about the Ark of the Covenant being captured by the Philistines. This led to the death of Eli’s two wayward sons, Hophni and Phineas, and on hearing the news, the death of Eli. Phineas’ expectant wife went into labour and rejected the son born, calling him Ichabod, meaning ‘God’s glory has left Israel.’ The Ark was eventually returned but then during the Babylonian exile when the Temple was destroyed, and the ‘furniture’ looted it disappears never to be mentioned again apart from numerous tales and even a Hollywood blockbuster movie!
There was also no ‘Eternal Flame’ called ner’ Tamid, that signified God’s covenanted presence and the giving of Torah. (Fire/flame is sign of God’s presence, for example Moses and the burning bush)
In AD20 King Herod begin a massive rebuilding project of this Temple. But there is no evidence to suggest that this was not a mere self-aggrandizement project and a way of seeking to curry favour with the Jewish people. Nothing to suggest it was being developed to bring glory to God.
Most telling of all is that we have no reference to God’s shekinah glory descending upon the Temple either at its dedication or in the rebuilding.
Question – was God presence really there?
Herod’s Temple was finally completed in AD62/63 - and destroyed seven years later! In 132AD the Bar Kokbah revolt began, ending in defeat for the Israelites in 136AD.
So not only is there no shekinah glory – now there is no temple in which to gather to worship and offer sacrifices. How do we now engage with God?
Now let all those quotes and incidents about the Temple and our being 'living stones' from the Gospel’s and the Letters tumble into your mind.
Bring into focus the story of these disciples in an upper room. Luke does tell us exactly how many, it could have been 120, or the 11 or 12 apostles and Mary plus some other woman. However many they were praying and seeking God’s face and waiting expectantly.
We might consider the time frame the same as the Thy Kingdom Come initiative, 10 days of praying.
Now listen to this passage from Ephesians 2: 19-22
Ephesians 2:19-22 (CEV)
19 You Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens with everyone else who belongs to the family of God. 20 You are like a building with the apostles and prophets as the foundation and with Christ as the most important stone. 21 Christ is the one who holds the building together and makes it grow into a holy temple for the Lord. 22 And you are part of that building Christ has built as a place for God’s own Spirit to live.
Consider what the Temple stood for and its purpose and function.
That purpose and function now resides in you and in me as God’s living stones, as God’s Holy Temple dispersed throughout the world and filled with God’s shekinah glory.
Some of us may be keen to return to our ‘Temples’ – the places where we gather for worship, but we need to be careful that we don’t locate and lock God into that space, as wonderful as it might be.
Stephen in addressing the Council (Acts 7) said…"However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. Then going on to quote from the Prophet Isaiah… (66:1-2)
Heaven is my throne;
the earth is my footstool.
What kind of house could you build for me?
In
what place will I rest?
I have made everything;
that’s how it all came to be.
I,
the Lord, have spoken.
The people I treasure most
are
the humble—
they depend only on me
and
tremble when I speak.
Let us today come humbly before the Lord asking for our ‘temple’ to be cleared of rubbish and clutter that may have gathered over the years and ask for a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit.
Then may I invite you, when we do eventually get around to gathering once more in our ‘dedicated buildings,’ (Heb. 10.25) to look up at the lintel over the door and ask yourself what do you see written there, Ichabod or Shekinah?
Ichabod Shekinah
