Replacing of Place with Person
In the gospels Jesus on approaching Jerusalem shares with his followers the common destruction of the Temple. John shows us that like so much of the Bible there is a dual meaning to this statement. In John 2:21, 22 we find that his disciples realized after the resurrection that he was referring to his body.
The Temple was and is a special place. We find Jesus legitimately angry at the Temple when he clears the temple of the cheats and hustlers who prey on pilgrims. Why? Because the Temple was the representation of God for the God’s chosen people. It was suppose to be a place where people could draw near to God. It was suppose to be a place that testified to the covenant relationship that God desired with His people.
I have been reading a text book by Oskar Skarsaune entitled In the Shadow of the Temple this past week and he pointed the way to Stephen in Acts 6 and 7. What brought those in the synagogue of the Freedmen to a point where they could take no more of Stephen? What pushed them over the edge to bring charges against Stephen? In Acts 6:13 they say it is because, “This man never ceases to speak words against the holy place and the law.” Stephen was talking bad about the Temple and that bothered them.
When Stephen quotes Isaiah 66:1, 2 and says that God needs no house to rest in they became enraged and took him outside the city and stoned him. He attacked the necessity of the Temple. Why? Because the Messiah had come. Jesus the trueTemple had arrived, we need no more place holder, no representation because the real thing arrived, lived, died and rose on the third day.
Paul takes this one step further and shares that because the Spirit now lives in us we are the Temple. We are a holy place where God comes near. We are His testimony. We seek to live as a witness of God, our actions testify to His nature. What a wonderful and beautiful story which is why my heart breaks for the fellowship of my youth.
They spend all of their time arguing about place. They spend their time debating what can and can’t happen in a place, never seeming to grasp that it was forever moved from a place to a person.
Recently I stumbled upon the church website of the church we worshiped at while living in Iowa. I listened to the people they were looking at hiring to be their minister and all of their sermons were so familiar. All were focused on place. Not only where all the people applying talking about place, their Sunday morning substitute was talking about place.
It makes me sad because I worshiped with many of those people. Their eldership has changed since our time their and so has the direction. How sad to miss such a basic truth, it isn’t about place it is Person. All of those rituals were a shadow. They represented Jesus and yet they create forms that are a shadow of nothing, place holders that have nothing to do with anything.
I rejoice that today we have the person and I pray that the place always remembers this. Would you be willing to be stoned defending Person over place?
In the gospels Jesus on approaching Jerusalem shares with his followers the common destruction of the Temple. John shows us that like so much of the Bible there is a dual meaning to this statement. In John 2:21, 22 we find that his disciples realized after the resurrection that he was referring to his body.
The Temple was and is a special place. We find Jesus legitimately angry at the Temple when he clears the temple of the cheats and hustlers who prey on pilgrims. Why? Because the Temple was the representation of God for the God’s chosen people. It was suppose to be a place where people could draw near to God. It was suppose to be a place that testified to the covenant relationship that God desired with His people.
I have been reading a text book by Oskar Skarsaune entitled In the Shadow of the Temple this past week and he pointed the way to Stephen in Acts 6 and 7. What brought those in the synagogue of the Freedmen to a point where they could take no more of Stephen? What pushed them over the edge to bring charges against Stephen? In Acts 6:13 they say it is because, “This man never ceases to speak words against the holy place and the law.” Stephen was talking bad about the Temple and that bothered them.
When Stephen quotes Isaiah 66:1, 2 and says that God needs no house to rest in they became enraged and took him outside the city and stoned him. He attacked the necessity of the Temple. Why? Because the Messiah had come. Jesus the trueTemple had arrived, we need no more place holder, no representation because the real thing arrived, lived, died and rose on the third day.
Paul takes this one step further and shares that because the Spirit now lives in us we are the Temple. We are a holy place where God comes near. We are His testimony. We seek to live as a witness of God, our actions testify to His nature. What a wonderful and beautiful story which is why my heart breaks for the fellowship of my youth.
They spend all of their time arguing about place. They spend their time debating what can and can’t happen in a place, never seeming to grasp that it was forever moved from a place to a person.
Recently I stumbled upon the church website of the church we worshiped at while living in Iowa. I listened to the people they were looking at hiring to be their minister and all of their sermons were so familiar. All were focused on place. Not only where all the people applying talking about place, their Sunday morning substitute was talking about place.
It makes me sad because I worshiped with many of those people. Their eldership has changed since our time their and so has the direction. How sad to miss such a basic truth, it isn’t about place it is Person. All of those rituals were a shadow. They represented Jesus and yet they create forms that are a shadow of nothing, place holders that have nothing to do with anything.
I rejoice that today we have the person and I pray that the place always remembers this. Would you be willing to be stoned defending Person over place?
posted by Darin L. Hamm at
9:00 AM
4 Comments:
Great thoughts Darin. Thanks!
So there is still a valid concept of "sacred space" but it is just where ever Jesus is?
Blessings
Bobby Valentine
Darin,
Very intersting post.
Bobby,
Not sure if that was a rhetorical question but it would seem that it is in the gathering of the body, the church. That could be and was anywhere.
Do rituals in that place make it sacred or the fact that the body is gathered in the name of Jesus? I believe it is the later, what do you think?
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