"The Temple That Cannot Be Destroyed" Tenth Sunday after Trinity Commemoration of Bartholomew, Apostle August 24, 2014 Luke 19:41–48
When you walked in here this morning you walked through a doorway. You stepped onto the carpet. You might have looked ahead of you to see the altar and the cross. If you look to your sides you will walls that prevent you from going either of those ways. When you look up you see the high vaulted ceiling. When you came in here you were coming into a building we call a church. Many people put their hands and their architectural abilities to work in building this building. They did it to build a building that’s not just a building but a church. It’s a building that we refer to as the House of God. This building is dedicated for the purpose of the people of God to gather in worship. It’s an important building. Nonetheless, it is a building. It has stood for many years and shows signs of wear. At some point parts will need to be fixed or replaced. There is always the possibility it may be destroyed through a natural disaster or a fire or vandalism. This building won’t last forever. No building does. Nevertheless, Christians around this city and throughout our state and across the country and over all the world have buildings just like this one. The architecture will vary but the purpose is the same. If you travel across the country and go to a church you will not think that the worship is somehow less of worship because you’re not in your church on that day. You have no thought that that church and this one here isn’t enough because you aren’t in the one that supersedes all the others. The Jews have their Temple Mount, the Muslims have their Mecca, and the Mormons have their Temple. We Christians just have our regular old churches. Some are spectacular and some are modest. But we have no temple or special holy site that we place above any others. What we have is this building right here. This is where we come to receive the Gifts of God and give Him praise. If you move away you will find another one just like it. Even if this building were to crumble tomorrow that would not affect our worship one bit. It would seem strange, but the Gifts God delivers in the worship service are not bound to a building. And that brings us to the Temple. In the Old Testament God commanded His people to build Him one. They did and it was magnificent. Guess what happened to it? It was destroyed. It was leveled. And the people of God were set on building a new one. It didn’t happen until King Herod accomplished the feat in the decades before Jesus was born. It too was magnificent. It’s the one that is talked about in today’s Gospel reading. This Temple, Jesus teaches in the Gospel reading, will be destroyed. Jesus entered Jerusalem and wept over it. “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.” He says the days will come upon you when your enemies attack you. “And,” He says, “they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” That magnificent structure, that building that was more important than any other building, would be destroyed. It would be destroyed out of God’s judgment on His people. The building is important not in itself but because of what happens there. That’s what the people were forgetting. That’s what they were rejecting. They were turning it into a place where they could serve themselves as their own gods. The Gospel reading says that Jesus “entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer,” but you have made it a den of robbers.’” Jesus pronounces judgment upon the people, the Temple will be destroyed. Then He goes into the Temple and drives out those who were desecrating the Temple. The purpose of this building was, Jesus says, to be a house of prayer. The fact that it was a structure meant that it could be destroyed. The fact that it was a building built by human hands meant that it could be used for a purpose other than to glorify God. But there was another temple. It was a temple that could not be destroyed. It was not built by human hands. It was right before their very eyes but they couldn’t see it. Jesus Himself was the Temple of God. Herod would spent forty-six years building the Temple and it would be destroyed overnight. God would send His Son overnight as well, as He was born of Mary. He was the Temple not made with hands but begotten of His Father. This Temple could not be destroyed. Or couldn’t it? In the Gospel reading it says that Jesus “was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy Him, but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on His words.” They wanted to destroy Him, but they couldn’t because the people were hanging on His words. His enemies would have to find another way. And they did. We know this. We know what happened. Jesus was in fact destroyed. The temple of His body was nailed to a cross and His life gave way hanging there. He is the Temple that cannot be destroyed and yet He died and His body was laid in a tomb. We also know what happens after that as well. We know His body didn’t stay dead. We know that His body, though destroyed, was not utterly destroyed, as His flesh did not see decay in that tomb but was gloriously restored in emerging from the tomb. However, we shouldn’t jump so quickly to that fact. Without the resurrection everything is meaningless, but that doesn’t mean that the suffering and the crucifixion were just rungs along the ladder to the main thing. The fact that the Gospel reading for today says that Jesus’ enemies were not able to destroy Him as they wanted to speaks volumes about who Jesus is and why He came. He knew in pronouncing judgment they would seek to destroy Him. He knew that in driving out the sellers in the Temple they would seek to kill Him. But He also knew that it wasn’t time yet. This is the important point. He was the one who knew more than all of them the necessity of Him being destroyed as He was, in being arrested, scourged, and crucified. The Temple housed thousands of sacrifices but the one standing before them would go to the cross as the sacrifice that encompass all others. This was the sacrifice that could not be offered in a building. It was offered on the cross to His Heavenly Father and He offered it as a willing sacrifice. Even though He was destroyed, in His death He destroyed death. Even though His body went to the grave, He was victorious in accomplishing salvation in fulfillment of all the sacrifices that had ever been offered. Now was the time for the Father to accept the sacrifice of His Son and so He raised Him from the dead. Jesus rose from the grave and He now lives as the Living Temple of God. There is no building that can take the place of the one who is the eternal dwelling place of the eternal God. You know that someday you will lie in a grave just as Jesus did. Unless He returns in glory beforehand, you are going to die. Your body will be destroyed. It will decay in the grave. But there are other things you know which supersede that. You know that Christ is more powerful than your grave because He conquered His. You will rise on the Last Day and you will never die again and you will never see decay. That, though, is in the future. There is something you know now that impacts you before you die. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. God makes His home with you. God redeems you and cleanses the temple that is your sinful flesh. He recreates you into a temple in which you are holy, without blemish, without sin. You are a living temple of Christ. You cannot be destroyed no matter what Satan may do to you or what ravages sin and illness or disaster may do to you. You are a new creation. You will rise on the Last Day. You are Baptized into the eternal Temple that is Jesus Christ. He has made His home with you. There is no need for sacrifice, your life is a living sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise. There is no need to fear any destruction or decay in this life, of buildings or your body. There is only need to rejoice that God invites you here to receive not sacrifice but Sacrament. Your Lord coming to you in the Gospel to forgive and renew you. Your Lord coming to you in His Holy Sacrament to give you the very temple of His body and the very blood that was poured out as the once for all sacrifice. This all given to you in a fallen world and body which eventually will give out. All given to you so that as a temple of the Holy Spirit you may live in sacrifice and service to others and so that even when you die you will live forever. Amen. SDG -- Pastor Paul L. Willweber Prince of Peace Lutheran Church [LCMS] 6801 Easton Ct., San Diego, California 92120 619.583.1436 princeofpeacesd.net three-taverns.net It is the spirit and genius of Lutheranism to be liberal in everything except where the marks of the Church are concerned. [Henry Hamann, On Being a Christian] _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
