The Center of Worship

 October 31 2021

1 Kings 8:1-21

         A week or so ago was the gotcha day for our dog Mazy. We got her from a rescue center and all we really know about her lineage is that she is a fox terrier and perhaps Italian Greyhound which explains why her mature weight is about 9 pounds. Yet even though she is small in size she is quite big in personality. One of Mazy’s favorite things to do is to go for walks in the woods which surround our home. Being that she is part Greyhound means that she has weird ways of getting what she wants. Instead of incessant begging she will instead sit and stare at you. If you ignore her fiery glances then she will take her paw and knock whatever you are reading out of your hand to get her point across. If her paws still don’t get the desired effect then she will climb up on the back of the couch and start licking your ears which pretty much makes you want to get out of your chair. 

         Now, when we go for walks in the woods, Mazy just runs off to sniff every little hole in the vicinity leaving me to just have to walk around pretending that I too am part of the critter hunt. So, because I have no interest in critters I instead use my time just looking at the trees and plants that make up the woods. One of the things that I have found fascinating is how the two storms that affected our home have caused a lot of damage to the trees in the woods. There are a lot of uprooted trees strewn everywhere. There are also those trees that have been bent and twisted by the wind, some of them have been partially uprooted yet in spite of the terrible shape that they find themselves in these battered trees still show signs of life.  From the trees permanently bowed over are growing shoots heading straight up towards the meager sunlight. Others trees which are leaning over at steep angles look like they are  not far from falling but out of them comes new shoots that know how to grow straight. I quite frankly am amazed at how this life that is in them is a life that is seemingly not easily defeated. The word that comes to mind when you look at these tough battered trees is resilient. The word resilient means “to spring back” and while these trees never will spring back to their original shape that they had before the storms they nonetheless have sprung back to life when the forces of nature did their best to take that life from them.

         Being resilient seems to come quite naturally for trees but we have to wonder just what is necessary for us as people to be resilient, to be people who bounce back after adversity strikes? Well, fortunately for us, there are people who study such things. Duncan Westbrook a clinical psychologist who assists missionaries who move to foreign lands wanted to discover what was necessary for these missionaries to be able to weather the storms they would face when they found themselves in strange lands with confusing cultures and norms. What he discovered is that there was a relation between the picture one holds of God and ones ability to be resilient in the face of difficulty. So, I have to ask, just what picture comes to mind when you think about God? Is your God a distant God who is just there in emergencies or is your God close by all the time? Is your God a God who is only compassionate or is your God a God who seeks out justice and judgment? Is your God a God with whom you have had the same relationship since you first met him or is he a God that you have grown to know him better as time has gone on? Is your God you have pretty much figured out or is he a God who the more you learn about him the more you realize that he is a God beyond what you will ever figure out? Just what is your image of God?

         Well what Duncan Westbrook learned is that there are three healthy signs of a person’s image of God. The first of these is the presence of intimacy, a knowing that our God is a God who is close by. The second sign that should be present in our image of God is that he is a God that we have a growing relationship with through all of our stages of life. The third sign of a healthy image of God is an acceptance of the mystery of God. If our picture of God includes these three things, that our God is a God who is a God close by, that he is a God we grow in our relationship through our stages of life and if our God is a God of mystery beyond our understanding then we will be less likely to be plagued by anxiety and we will find ourselves more resilient, able to bounce back in the face of difficulty.

         Now, the reason that I found this study so intriguing is that these three signs of a healthy image of God correspond very closely with the three distinct areas found in the temple that we read about in our scripture for today. The reason that we even need to worry what image of God that we might have is that the main purpose of the Temple is that it was to be built as a house for the name of the Lord. Over and over in this account of the building of the Temple by Solomon there is this repetition of the Temple being tied to the name of the Lord. So, we have to ask ourselves just what is meant by this phrase, “the name of the Lord”? The best way, perhaps to figure out what is meant by this phrase is to consider what is meant by someone saying that they don’t want anyone to ruin their good name. When we hear this we just know that what they are talking about is their reputation; this is what they do not want ruined because their reputation is what people will know about them until they actually get to meet them in person. A person’s reputation is very much like an image of who a person is until we can meet the person that the image is based upon. So, it is with God. His name is his reputation, what people say about him, the image that is portrayed about him by those who do know him. We get this sense in part of the prayer that Solomon offers up at the Temple dedication found in the forty-first verse of the eighth chapter of First Kings where we hear Solomon say, “Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people of Israel, comes from a far country for your names sake, for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand of your outstretched arm and when this foreigner comes and prays toward this house hear his prayer.” Here is a person who knows nothing about God except of his great reputation, what others have experienced of him and because of this great reputation the one who is foreign to the ways of God will have the assurance to pray to this God and know that God will listen to him. So, if this is what is meant by God’s name then we have to go on and ask just what does it mean for the Temple to be the house of the name of God, or better how is the Temple the place where the reputation of God is established? When we try and figure out the answers to these questions what helps in our discovery is knowing what is a healthy image of God, an image which empowers the people who have this image to be resilient people.

         It was in the Temple then that the people of Israel developed their understanding of who God is and the three distinct areas of the Temple align themselves with what has been discovered are necessary for a healthy image of God. The first of these areas was the outer court where the altar was located. It was in this area that the people would bring their animals and their first fruit offerings as required by God. It is difficult for us with our modern sensibilities to make much sense of all of the required sacrifices however the most important aspect of the sacrifices is that they involved the shedding of blood. The importance of blood in the sacrificial rituals is found in the seventeenth chapter of Leviticus where we are told, “The life of the flesh is in the blood, I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls, the blood makes atonement by the life.” You see, the reason for all of the sacrifices is that they were necessary to make atonement. Atonement is a word that means to come together in unity after having being separated and the separation that needed remedied was the separation that was caused by the sins of God’s people. So, the reason for the sacrifices was so that God was willing to give a life in order to remove whatever stood in the way of there being an intimate relationship with his people. What was to have been taken from this experience in the outer court was that the God that they worshiped desired an intimate relationship with his people and he provided the life blood necessary to cleanse the sin that kept that intimacy from happening.

         The next court found in the Temple was called the Holy Place. Here in this inner court was found on one side a candelabra of seven wicks fueled by olive oil which never went out. This is the menorah that is seen when the Jewish people celebrate their holiday of Hanukkah. Opposite of this candelabra was a table upon which were laid twelve loaves of bread representing the twelve tribes of Israel. The imagery of this place was that the twelve tribes of Israel were to live always in the perpetual light of the face of God. This is what is referred to in the blessing that Aaron was instructed to pray over the people when he prays that the face of God shine upon them. Once they had their sins forgiven through the shed blood then in this restored unity with God they were to continually live before the face of God, in the light of his continual presence. This living before the light of God meant that over time that their lives might glow with his light, that who God is might be seen in who they were and who they were becoming. So, once again this is much like what is necessary to have a healthy image of God, that we have a God whom we are continually growing in our relationship with him. As the people of God moved through the various stages of their life they would bask in the light of a life lived before the face of God and in doing so they would be transformed as Paul understood it, from one degree of glory to another.

         The last court that was of upmost importance in the Temple was the Holy of Holies. This was a small chamber in which inside was found only the ark of the covenant. Inside the ark was to be found the Ten Commandments the sign of the peoples covenant with God. The Holy of Holies was only entered once every year during the Feast of Atonement, the Yom Kippur. The High Priest would enter and sprinkle blood upon the top of the ark of the covenant, the place known as the mercy seat of God, the place that it was believed that the Holy Presence of God would touch the earth. This holiness of God was a mysterious, powerful, awe inspiring aspect of God that indicated that the God that the people of Israel believed in was beyond their very understanding and knowledge; he is a God who is only known as he desires to reveal himself to us. This is what was communicated through this holiest of holy places, the infinite, holy, otherness of God. This too is a necessary part of a healthy image of God because for us to be resilient people we need a God whose infinity can counter our limited existence. We need a God who stands outside the broken sinful mess of our world, unstained by all of its corruption, in order to have any hope that this world and ourselves can be saved.

         So, through this experience that God’s people would have at the Temple, God communicated to them who he was. He is a God who desired a close intimate relationship with his people willing to allow the shedding of blood, the giving of a life so that the sins which came between God and his people might be cleansed away. In their experience at the Temple, the people of God would become once again aware of the Holy place where the bread of the presence, a loaf placed there which represented their own tribe, would be known to reside before the perpetual light, the shining face of their God. This is the light which was to shine upon them to guide them through all their life. And they also would know that at the very center of this holy place of worship was the most holiest place of their world, a place of such infinite holiness that they would have been filled with a sense of dread when they thought of it. This was their reminder that their God was a great and holy God who was beyond all they could ever imagine, greater than their problems, a God who was their sure anchor through whatever storms might come. There God then would have a reputation of being a God who did not keep them from adversity but rather he was a God who made them resilient no matter the storms that they faced. They could bounce back because he was a God who was close to them, a God who was present with them, whose light guided their way and a God who is greater and so beyond us that his holiness was all that needed to be feared. This then would have been the reputation of the God that the people of Israel met in their house of worship so that it could be said that their house of worship was indeed the house of the name of God.

         Where all of this becomes so important for us today is that it helps us understand what Jesus meant when, in the second chapter of the gospel of John, he tells the people in power, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” These people could not understand what Jesus had meant as it had taken forty-six years to build the Temple so just how did Jesus expect to build one in three days. The answer we are told is that he was speaking of his body. The risen Jesus then is our new Temple yet even knowing this we still are left wondering just what does it mean for Jesus to be our Temple. A clue to help our understanding is found in something Jesus tells us in the fourth chapter of John’s gospel, where he states, “The hour is coming when true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.” When Jesus spoke these words we know that he was the one who was anointed by the Holy Spirit and so he was the one who worshiped the Father in the Spirit and the truth. Yet, because Jesus came in the flesh with a body just like ours, we are united with him so that we also can worship truly in the Spirit. The Spirit reveals to us that the once for all sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross happened because of the great desire that our Heavenly Father has to have an intimate, love relationship with us, so much so that he was willing to give his only Son up to shed his blood for our atonement. Now, because of Jesus, our sins are forgiven and we can be united with God. Three days later Jesus arose from the dead shining in the light of the glory of God so that we might know that we live forever before the face of Jesus who is for us the very face of God. So, as Paul wrote in the third chapter of Second Corinthians, “And we all with unveiled faces beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another”. There again we see a growing relationship over time with the God who has united himself with us. Jesus after his resurrection ascended into the heavens on the clouds and there he reigns forever. Jesus, our High Priest, has entered into the most Holy of Holies, yet, amazingly, Paul tells us at the beginning of the third chapter of Colossians, so have we. Paul tells us that there in the heavens, a place beyond what we can ask or imagine, there our life is hid in Christ until he comes again when we will appear with him in glory. This experience is clearly beyond us, that we are here and yet we are in the heavens caught up in the mystery and holiness of God on account of Christ. Yet, just like experience had by the people of Israel, our anchor holds within the mystery beyond the veil. 

         Through our experience with Christ who is our Temple then we understand God as a God whose greatest desire is to be intimate with us. With our God we can be completely open and vulnerable because Christ was willing to be vulnerable enough to open himself up to the experience of the cross. Through our experience with the risen Christ we now know that ever before us is not an unknown future but instead we know that in that future is the very face of Christ in whose glorious light we are to live our life and grow ever more like him. In our experience with Christ as our Temple we are to know that we have ascended into the great mystery of heaven with him and know that the God who knows us is infinitely more than we will ever understand. This is our hope that our God is greater than our greatest fears and it is this mystery that anchors us. The result of our Temple experience is that we know God as the God who is able to create us as resilient people who can weather the storms and bounce back from adversity. The question then, is this: Is this the God that others know through you? Just what is the image of God you share with the world around you? To God be the glory! Amen!