We the Temple

WE THE TEMPLE 
 
During the closing few months leading up to the final week of the life and ministry of Jesus the momentum of his public appearances began to build up, and supernatural works of miracles and healing among the blind and the lame and the infirm were taking place everywhere he went. These sensational public appearances of Jesus and his engagement in open conflict and debate with the Scribes and Pharisees created a fame and notoriety that he had not deliberately set out to achieve. But he saw his Father ‘s power and love being glorified through him in these things, especially in the final most astonishing miracle of his raising of his friend Lazarus from the dead, and it was during that time that he began to be questioned by the many that followed him if he was indeed the Christ. 

All this uninvited fame and notoriety and political power polling posed an enormous threat not only to Herod who was the legal king over the Jews, but it also signalled a threat to the Roman Empire as the people were urging him to establish his own kingdom. And when he finally rode into Jerusalem on a donkey at the beginning of the week of the Passover the Bible says; ‘The Pharisees spoke to one another saying, “You see, we can do nothing. Look, the whole world has gone after him!’ (John 12:19)
They feared that Jesus would decide to rule over the Jewish religion and keep on working miracles like feeding hungry multitudes and raising people from the dead, and they were anxious about the fervour of the hero worship of Jesus and the anticipation of his rise to spiritual power. They feared He would be invincible and topple their religious power base. They had feverishly been trying to discredit the resurrection of Lazarus to the point that the chief priests plotted to have Lazarus put to death, and for him to stay dead this time (John 12:10).

The passionate dedication of Jesus for the Temple, his Father’s house, had been most evident in those last few months of his ministry as he placed intense focus on the final three Temple feasts.   
For Jesus each Temple visit was not just like a visit to church as a good religious Jew. There was a distinct purpose for each visit because each feast had a message about how Jesus had been intricately involved in the record of Israel throughout history. At each feast he made statements that declared that he was the spiritual fulfillment of what that feast was all about. At each feast he declared what was happening in the here and now for Israel in that present moment. And for each feast he declared our future participation with him as the new Temple to be - in the prophetic fulfillment of our lives, as history would move forward in the plan of God for this age.

The first of the final three Temple visits was when he attended the Feast of Tabernacles, called ‘the feast of booths (tents)’, celebrating the miracle of the living water that flowed from out of the rock that Moses struck with his rod in the wilderness. (Exodus 17:3) 
Jesus had taken the back roads to Jerusalem to avoid the now common busy interaction with the crowds because he wanted to appear at the feast about midway into it to be ready for the moment for him to speak the words that would be immortalised for us throughout time. On that meandering way to the Temple he would have passed many hundreds of tents camped upon the hillsides because thousands of people gathered on these hills for the week of the ‘feast of booths (tents)’.

During that feast people had been dancing and singing as the water drawing ceremonies and rituals were acted out each morning. Women would get water from the surrounding springs and wells in their water pitchers and take them up to the temple singing with the men and the children from Isa 12:13 ‘Therefore with joy you shall draw water from the wells of salvation.
The feast had a closing ceremony on the 7th day and the main feature was the drawing of the living water commemorating the living water that God had provided for them at the Rock in their wilderness travels, and Jesus had arrived for that special part of the ceremony
On that day, as the large golden water bowl was carried by the people up the temple steps, the huge crowd stood around watching and cheering, amidst the sounding trumpet blasts. This was the high point of the feast, and at the top of the temple steps was a special altar with a priest selected by the Sadducees, waiting for the big moment to arrive. When the bowl was presented to him he would raise his hand to indicate that the call was about to be made for people to ‘Come, you who thirst, drink of the water’. 

This would have been the moment, when the priest raised his hand, that Jesus would have stood in front of the crowd and called out in a strong loud voice as we see in the Scripture, ‘On that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, As the Scripture has said, Out of His heart will flow rivers of living water’. He was speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive (John 7:37)
Those words that Jesus said at that time in front of all the Jewish pilgrims from all over the Middle East, Asia Minor and Greece would have hit their ears like a thunderclap. Everybody would have known whose cry it was, and many would have seen its significance, namely that Jesus had come to embody all that past experience of Israel in the wilderness. 
The Scriptures tell us (John 7: 40-44) that division and argument broke out amongst the crowd. Many in the crowd said, ‘This is The Prophet’ while others said ‘This is The Christ’, while the temple police officers said ‘no one has ever spoken like this man’. Jesus had turned their historic feast into a proclamation of their salvation and our salvation, our present faith and our future hope, an astounding fulfillment of prophecy. And this audacious performance further provoked the priests and the teachers of the Law.

The second Temple visit was when he attended the Feast of Hanukkah. Hanukkah is the feast of the re-dedication of the Temple at Jerusalem. This feast is not mentioned in the Old Testament as it occurred between the time of the last book (Malachi), and before the time of Jesus. However, it is mentioned in the New Testament. It came in December, a little while after the Feast of Tabernacles, and before the Feast of Passover in March/April of the next year.
John 10:22 Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the Temple, in Solomon's porch. Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
And then Jesus declared ‘I and the Father are one’ and the Bible tells us that the Jews picked up stones again to stone him, but Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” (John 10:31)

Then in the last week of Jesus’ life and ministry, which we call Holy Week, Jesus rode down from the Mount of Olives near Bethany into Jerusalem on a donkey that had been prepared for him by his disciples, while the crowds laid palm leaves on the road in front of him calling out ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel!’ (John 12:12) That last week, which was to culminate in the feast of Passover was also the week of the Last supper, and the week where he was betrayed by Judas, and where he agonised in the Garden of Gethsemane, and where He was denied by Peter, put on trial, and crucified. 
That spectacular visit of Jesus to the feast of Passover was the third significant visit to attend special Feasts at the Temple that Jesus had made in the last five months of his ministry.

This third visit was a week before the Feast of Passover, and this time he came to cleanse the temple from the corruption of the money changers and to heal many of the blind and the infirm who were only allowed to enter the outer Temple area.

Jesus had made clear to his disciples that the procession was to be the fulfillment of a prophecy by the prophet Zechariah.
Zechariah 9:9 cry aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king is coming to you; he is righteous and able to deliver, he is humble and riding on a donkey and a colt, the foal of a donkey. 
Jesus had also told everyone that he was not interested in an earthly kingdom, and that his kingdom is a spiritual one, but his followers did not want to believe this.  

After Jesus had entered Jerusalem and the noisy and boisterous procession was over, with palm leaves left strewn everywhere, Jesus headed straight for the Temple, his Father’s House, to which he was dedicated with a passion. 

When Jesus entered the vast outer court of the Gentiles he went to where the money changers were selling animals and birds for sacrifice. It was into this area where multitudes of Jews from other regions like Syria and Persia and Chaldea and Asia Minor would come during this special week for the Feast of the Passover. The grandeur and vastness of this Temple complex that Herod had built covered an astounding area of about 35 acres, and the outer court of the Gentiles would have accommodated the space of many many football stadiums. It was a massive wonder described by Josephus the historian as ‘the greatest ever heard of’. Because these foreigners didn’t have the silver Temple shekel currency, they had to exchange their foreign money. The money changing tables were not the problem for Jesus, because these people needed to buy turtle doves, lambs, and such things to offer sacrifices, but his heart burst with indignation at the greed and corruption of the money changers because they charged from twenty to three hundred percent interest. This was not only criminal, but it was an abomination that his Father’s House which was supposed to be used for prayers and worship and sacrifice had been turned into ‘a den of thieves’ (Matthew 21). So he threw over their tables and chased them out of the temple. His actions were hard-hitting and forceful, but they were driven by a zealous and protective love for his Father’s house, the house of prayer and the presence of God. 

There were many others quietly mingling among the crowd in the outer court that boisterous day of the incident with the money tables, they were the silent ones who had learned to accept their lot and not lift their voices above the crowd. They were the blind and the lame and infirm who were forbidden by the decrees in Leviticus 21 to enter into the Temple proper to ‘appear before the Lord’ and worship in his presence. They were separated and cut off and mostly despised by the Pharisees and some others of the Temple worshipers and Jesus had great compassion for them. They would have heard the life-giving words of this prophet/teacher who healed the sick and even forgave sins, and they would have held a humble hope in their hearts that this man was indeed the Messiah. They had held back when the commotion of the money tables was going on and when it had at last ceased and Jesus was left standing alone for a long moment they rushed towards him with outstretched arms and Jesus stood in their midst and healed everyone of them from their diseases. Jesus had come to change their pitiful state that day and to turn those outsiders into insiders.
Matthew 21:14 the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

The Temple was the one Old Testament fixture that was emblematic of everything holy for Jesus throughout his entire life. He was dedicated there, and twelve years later when he came to the Temple with his parents for the feast of Passover he sat with the teachers of the Law there for three days speaking words of wisdom there to them and astonishing them, and when his distraught parents found him after they had supposed him missing, he said to them, ‘Don’t you know I must be about my Father’s work?’(Luke 2)

The Temple was the place where it was ordained in the Old Testament that God would meet with his people – it was his habitation. But this Temple was about to change its nature from a man-made structure to a Heaven-sent person. This was paramount for Jesus, who was in fact the living breathing walking Temple who knew that his death and resurrection would mean that the material Temple, called in Scripture the ‘Temple made with hands’ would no longer be the place where God met with his people. In fact, a short time after his death and resurrection the Temple would be destroyed and cease to exist. His prophecy concerning this reality actually became the charge of blasphemy that was made against him at his trial.
John 2:9 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

The final dramatic transfiguration of the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem from the place of worship and God’s presence into a spiritual reality of ‘God with us’ through Jesus Christ was marked by a supernatural sign at the time of his crucifixion. When Jesus died on the cross at Golgotha the Scripture says; ‘And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit, and behold, the curtain of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks were split’ (Matthew 27:50) .

When that curtain was torn it was the last barrier to come down between God and mankind in the earth. In a few weeks the Holy Spirit would be sent from heaven to the earth on the day of Pentecost and access into the holy place of God’s presence would be an act of faith and love as people received the risen life of Jesus to dwell within their hearts and become living Temples of the Holy Spirit. 

So just as Jesus was able to say I am the Temple, he said that so that we can now say we are the Temple. And just as Jesus declared he was the living water at the feast of Tabernacles, so now we have that river of the life of the Holy Spirit flowing within us. And just as Jesus said ‘I and the Father are one’ at the feast of Dedication, we can say we are now one with he and the Father (John 14). And just as he spoke the words ‘It is finished’ on the cross at the Passover feast, so for us there is nothing we can do by our own works to add to his perfect work of salvation other than to believe.

No matter how many cathedrals and churches we build there is no longer any man-made sanctuary in this earth, or any altar. The altar is in our heart of love and surrendered faith in Jesus, and wherever we meet and however we meet in his name we are his Temple (1Corinthians 6:19), and he joins with us there in worship to the Father.