Temples and Tabernacles: Stability and Flexibility

As God's people, there is a certain amount of tension that we live with in our faith lives.  We have been rescued from our sin by what Jesus did and endured for us, and yet, we still battle against sin in our daily lives.  We are fully redeemed in God's eyes by what Jesus has done, and by virtue of our baptism, and yet, we are still sinful human beings, daily doing that which He says not to do, and failing to do that which He commands us to do.

One thing about us human beings, though, is that we simply do not do well with tension.  We go out of our way to keep tension down in our lives.  Tension even goes so far as to have physical effects on our bodies.  Our heart rate elevates.  Our blood pressure rises.  We may even find ourselves sweating.  In our minds, it creates that "fight or flight" instinct.  Tension just isn't something that deal well with, even when it is something like wrestling with the fact that we have life in Jesus, and yet, we must die because of our sin.

In a way, the place of God's presence presents tension into what we think of God and how He comes to us.  In one sense, we want a reliable place to know that "this is the place where I go to meet God."  There is comfort in knowing that we have a place to go in which we meet God, and where others can share that same thing.  That is the sense of the temple.  Here is the place where God meets His people, and you can know that He is there, as He has promised.

Yet, we also want to know that God is with us wherever we may go.  We want a God who is with us, regardless of where we may be.  We want a God who travels with us on the roads of life, who goes before us, who goes under us to support us, and above us to protect us.  This is the sense of the tabernacle, that God is with us in our travels, and not merely at one designated place, and that He promises that He is with us wherever we may be.

The reality that we find is that God desires both of these.  God is a God of the tabernacle, which traveled with the people throughout the wilderness, and God is a God of the temple, establishing a place where He can be found on a somewhat permanent basis.  And truth be told, there are times in our life where each of these is desirable.  We want the temple, the reassurance that THIS is God's house.  We also want the reassurance that God is with us when we are not in His house, but when we are fighting the good fight of the faith in our daily lives. 

The nice thing is, our God is both of these.  He doesn't feel the tension of wrestling with where He is found.  He simply is found.  He is present with us in all places, and He is present in His house for us.  He is stable, giving us a place where we can know He is found, and He is flexible, with us everywhere we go in life.  And that is a great thing for us, even if we cannot fully fathom it.

Temples and Tabernacles: Permanence and Manuverability

I've been giving this some thought for a while, and so perhaps it is time to start putting it down as a series of blog entries.  When you read through the Bible, one thing that you find regarding God and His presence on earth is the place where God has interaction with His people.  We especially find this in the Old Testament, leading up to and through the time of Jesus, but it's also something that carries on even after the ascension of Jesus.

What I'm talking about here is the place of God's presence.  At the time when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the wilderness, that place was the tabernacle, a tent where God came and lived among the people.  It was at the entrance to that tent where Moses would meet God and then deliver the words of God to the people.

For quite some time after the event of the Exodus, that was God's place of His presence.  When the tabernacle wasn't present, the ark of the covenant itself carried that place of God's presence.  During the period known as the judges, the ark carried that place of presence.  It travelled with God's people, which meant that God Himself travelled with His people.

It was King David, the second king of Israel, who had the thought of creating a permanent place for God's presence, in the form of a temple.  Even though it seems that God prefered to be manuverable among His people, He permitted the building of a temple, which took place under David's son, Solomon.  There, God now had a permanent place to meet with His people.  There were still restrictions on who could enter that place of presence, and what they could do there, but now, rather than travelling with His people, God's people instead had to come to the place of His presence.

Over the next few blog posts, we will be looking a little bit more at this.  We'll look at the strengths and weaknesses of each of these, but more importantly, we will look at what it means for us Christians, in our day and age, and where the place of God's presence is.  So join me on this rambling thought of temples and tabernacles, the place of God's presence.

Thinking about Miracles and the Like

One of the things I do regularly in my church life is interact with the children.  This year, in fact, I have taken up the task of teaching the young ones on Wednesday evenings.  These are some of the most fun times of the week, and I love seeing the joy that they have as they hear the Bible stories, and as we do related activities to what we hear from the pages of God's story.

Tonight, we talked a little bit about Jesus' miracle of healing the man born blind, from John 9.  One of the things that I enjoy seeing in the kids is how they can easily be engaged with thinking about things from the perspective of the people in the Bible.  Tonight, we thought for a bit about what it means to be able to see.  We tried different things, like walking without being able to see, being directed by others, and talked about the challenges of doing such things.  We also talked about how it would be to receive such a miracle from the hand of Jesus, just like this man did.

While the kids may not fully appreciate the miracle actions of Jesus (or any of the rest of us, as I think about it), the reality that Jesus did miracles still strikes me sometimes.  The best way I have heard it described is by one of my former professors.  He said that the miracles of Jesus are kind of like a sampler pack of chocolates that you might buy if you wanted to see what the store had to offer.  It's not the full selection, but gives you an idea of what is there.  In a way, the miracles that we read about in the Bible are kind of like: samples of the great things that lie ahead.

I know that there are many different thoughts on the miracles of the Bible, and even the ongoing miracles that still happen.  The thing I always come back to is a simple one.  What is the point of God doing a miracle?  Is it to show people that He is powerful?  I hardly think God needs to flex His muscles for others to admire.  Is it to simply show that He can?  Well, Jesus Himself said that people wouldn't believe, even if someone came back from the dead, and we see that this is really the case. 

So what would the purpose of a miracle be, then?  That's where I go back to thinking about the specific time and place where a majority of the miracles take place.  Jesus did many, but typically, they were misunderstood.  Even in the case of the man born blind, the miracle proved the hardness of men's hearts more than convinced them about God's grace.  The miracles freeing God's people from Egypt served to harden Pharoah's heart, rather than open it to the God of grace. 

What if God actually does miracles, not to draw people to Himself, but rather, to show people where their heart really is?  If people have to see the miraculous, maybe they aren't ready for the ordinariness of God, which is so prevalent in the Bible.  If they see a miracle, perhaps it will harden their heart even more, and thus reveal more about their heart rather than the heart of God. 

The one thing I can say for sure is that miracles point us, like the sample pack, to the fullness of new life that God will unveil at the new creation.  If a miracle is an outstanding event, how much better will be the new life that is revealed when Jesus reappears?  That, my friends, will truly be miraculous!

Honoring MLK Day

Since this blog is basically random thoughts on our life in this world as a Christian, inevitably there will be days, themes, and observances that I will "think about out loud", even if there isn't a specific Christian connection or correlation.  The theme of today, the day we, as a nation, honor Martin Luther King Jr, is one of those.

In a sense, it is both amazing and kind of sad that we have to have a day such as this to honor, especially when we think about it as a Christian.  Yes, Dr. King did many brave and courageous things in fighting for equality and equal rights in our nation.  I don't mean this post to downplay that in any form or fashion.  But I will say, especially from a Christian standpoint, it's rather sad that we have to have such a day to honor.

Why is that?  Well, if I understand much about what we believe about how God made us all and redeemed us all, it would seem that all humans, regardless of race, nationality, skin color, or any other feature, all stand equally in the eyes of God.  We are all equally His creation, and we are all equally His fallen, sinful creation.  Likewise, in Jesus, we are all equally redeemed through the blood of the Lamb, and we all equally have the hope of new life, as we put our hope and faith in His redeeming work for us.

In that regard, shouldn't we, as Christians, view the need for a Dr. King as a rather sad thing?  Shouldn't Christians, regardless of race, color, nationality, language, or any other characteristic, believe that humans stand equally in the eyes of God?  I believe the Bible makes pretty clear that we are to make no distinctions in these areas.  Yes, when it comes to our sinful behavior, we are called to treat each other in varying ways, though always tempered with compassion, and with an eye toward forgiveness.  But when it comes to race, nationality, and the like, we all truly stand as equals.

Quite often, in history, Christians have not spoken up against things that seem obvious to us with the perspective of hindsight.  Issues such as slavery and racism present one such example.  So yes, it is truly appropriate to honor such a significant figure, who fought for such things, even as we rather shame-facedly admit that the need for him to do such a thing was because we Christians often have a difficult time distinguishing exactly what God intends from us at any given time.  That's why we cling so richly to the Christ, to Jesus, and to the forgiveness that He purchased at such a high price.  And that is why it is fully appropriate to honor those who fight for things that we as Christians recognize that we should have been fighting for all along.

Dual Realities

I am pretty sure that I have blogged about this idea before, but it's one that I believe is well worth us thinking about.  It's also one that has a lot to do with some of the topics I am preaching on during the month of January.

As Christians, we find ourselves living in a dual kind of reality.  Okay, what do I mean by that?  Let's use being united in the Body of Christ as the example today, since that is the topic I am on this Epiphany season.  We live in one reality in which we are part of the Body of Christ because of what Jesus has done for us, in His life, death, and resurrection.  Our faith clings to His work, and in that, we are united together in a way that only God truly sees and knows.

Now, if that were the only reality, easy enough.  But when we read through the Bible, we find that God is constantly calling His people to live together in peace and unity.  This reveals to us the second reality in which we live.  We are united in the Body of Christ in this world.  The thing is, it is much more difficult to see that unity within this reality. 

As we look around the Christian landscape, we see multiple Christian churches and denominations, and even those who claim not be a denomination, which are really a denomination of themselves.  We see churches where conflict and struggle are the norm, rather than peace and unity.  And if we aren't careful, what we see in this reality can cause us to question the other reality, that we really are joined together and unified in the Body of Christ.

In the first reality, the work is fully God's.  God has redeemed us in Jesus, and He has even planted the gift of faith in our beings.  We don't do any of that; God does it all.  But in the second reality, the work of unity falls into our hands.  Yes, we are led by the Spirit, but we are the ones who have to work to remain connected and unified together.  We talk about how we may read various portions of the Scriptures differently.  We discuss how to act toward one another, and we determine the words that we use when we talk to and about one another.  In that way, unity is something that we have to work toward, even as we live in the greater, unseen reality, that we belong to God fully because of what Jesus has done.

What you often find, though, is that we as humans have a difficult time holding to the tension of those two realities.  We invariably slip more toward one than the other, rather than seeing that both hold equally upon us.  God fully establishes unity among us, and we have to work at unity.  Both are described in God's Word, and really, we see the truth of that every time we have two or three gather in God's name (where four or five opinions reside!).

This is not the Jesus you are looking for.

"Wise men still seek Him." Popular saying associated with the wise men.

According to the Christian tradition, Epiphany is the day where we remember the Magi coming to see Jesus.  They saw His star arise from in the east, and headed to the place where it was.  They arrived in Jerusalem, asking the king and his advisors where the newborn King of the Jews was to be found.  In Matthew's Gospel, it almost seems as though everyone there is caught off guard.  The scholars are sent for, who say that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.  And so, off the Magi were.

It would seem that the Magi did not find the Jesus they were looking for.  Yes, they found the real Jesus, but He didn't seem to be exactly what they were looking for when they set out.  After all, if the star led them to the place where Jesus was, why did they stop in Jerusalem, at the king's palace?  It would only seem fitting, since a king would be born in the capital city, right?  And yet, that was not where Jesus was to be found.

Today, as the popular saying above says, wise men still seek Jesus.  In our day and age, we would say that everyone who wants to know the wisdom of God seek out Jesus.  But is the Jesus they find the one that they are looking for?  Is the Jesus you find, as He is revealed in God's holy Word, the Jesus you are looking for?

Or, let me ask it a little differently.  What if the Jesus you find isn't the one that you are looking for, or the one you were hoping for?  What if He declares that something about your life is not in line with His design and desire?  He may not be the Jesus you are looking for.  What if He is far more forgiving of you than you are of yourself?  He may not be the Jesus you are looking for.  What if He is far more caring and forgiving for people that you don't really care for?  He may not be Jesus you are looking for.

In the end, though, the Jesus you find is far superior to the Jesus that you are looking for.  The Jesus the Magi found was the One who is the Savior of the world, not merely the King of the Jews.  The Jesus you find is far more forgiving and compassionate than you could ever imagine.  The Jesus you find is also far more strict than you could ever imagine.  That makes His forgiveness of even greater value.

In the end, the Jesus you find is one who will condemn you for everything (thought, word, and deed) contrary to God's will.  That's not the Jesus you were looking for.  However, that same Jesus is one who will welcome you into His eternal kingdom if you believe that He died to make you right with God.  That is probably far more than the Jesus you were looking for.  Yes, wise men still seek Him.  The thing is, the Jesus they find is far greater than the one they, and you, were seeking.

Twas the night before...Epiphany? Really?

Yes, it really is.  The twelve days of Christmas are almost to an end.  When the clock strikes midnight tonight, we will then change seasons, into the season of Epiphany.  In some ways, it is rather sad that the Christmas season is so short.  We have so many wonderful Christmas hymns and songs, dedicated to the infant Jesus, and the shortness of the season hardly gives us adequate time to dip our feet into those beautiful lyrics.

Yet, Epiphany is upon us.  Wait, some of you don't really know what Epiphany is?  Well, very briefly, Epiphany is the season between the birth of Jesus and the beginning of the season of Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday.  During that time, we consider how Jesus revealed who He really is. 

That means that we have a few different focus points during this season.  We hear about Jesus' first miracles, signs which marked that He was the One sent by God.  We hear some of the teachings that He began, which clearly pointed to why He came into this world.  In some traditions, the day we observe as Epiphany is also called Three Kings Day, a celebration of the visit of the Magi to the child Jesus.  This is a fully appropriate introduction to the Epiphany season, as the star revealed where the King of the Jews was found, a revealing all on its own.

Twas the night before Epiphany, and all through the house, creatures were stirring, as God was in the house.  As we go through this season of revealing, my prayer is that God reveals His hope to you in Jesus afresh, and that you have many opportunities to reveal Jesus to others as their God, Savior, and hope.