Man-made abodes for God

One might think that God stopped traveling and parked himself forever in that stone, man-made abode. The temple grounds were temporary, though. God isn’t confined to a temple, much less an Ark, so something else is going on here. 

The Ark ceased to focus the presence of God as the temple took that fixed place. True, the thingness of the Ark and the magnificent temple were temporary, but what they represent, right down to their design, points to a lasting element of God's presence. God dwells with us, and wants us to dwell with him.

Now, if we juxtapose the presence of God in Solomon’s temple against Jesus wandering among the Samarian countryside, as do the liturgists who composed today’s scripture collection, the contrast is stark. So, if this change of venue isn’t about God making adjustments in his character and essence, then what’s this about?

God draws us to him, not the other way around


http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/020518.cfm
1 Kings 8:1-7, 9-13
Mark 6:53-56


The settings where remarkable cathedrals and holy priests reside most appropriately suggests that these are the sacred spaces where God must be, don’t you think? Solomon thought so. And God certainly obliged him. 

Why, then, did Jesus’ life and presence as the incarnation of God emanate in such a different way? He ate with the wealthy and the poor, taught in temples and on hillsides, and allowed himself to be killed like a criminal. Are these two different Gods?

Today, God appears to reveal himself to us in even more diverse ways — among missioners in foreign lands, in the Eucharist at services across the globe, in confessionals and at deathbeds through the anointing and blessings of pastors and ministers. Just to name a few.

It appears that different Gods are at work here. Some think so. Does God’s presence among the Jews in the 9th Century B.C, the people of Israel in the first century A.D., and now, the 21st Century, represent three different Gods? 

I have read some theologians who see each of those graduated times of God's involvement, and each of God’s different revelatory experiences as simply the presence of a different person of the Trinity. 

While interesting, these bunny trails lead us in the wrong direction. God is the same, one God. God is immutable, unchangeable at his essence. In truth, then, God does not change who he is. What, then, is going on? Why so many different expressions of what God looks and acts like?

Before the Ark of the Covenant, God spoke to prophets. God lived in fire and cloud, but only after he spoke through a bush. God has always relied upon odd and unusual locales for his hallowed work. Perhaps it's best to look at God through his eyes, and not ours.

The Ark stood as the mobile house for God to present himself to his people. The wandering people then arrived where God wanted them to land. David proposed building the temple, but was told that task would fall to someone else. That man was his youngest son, Solomon.

Sounds like this young heir of Jewish reign earned more posh esteem from God than David. Again, our human eyes weigh God's intentions from our setting.

Solomon has been estimated to be the most wealthy individual of all time. He was initially funded by his father’s money, of course. Solomon’s investments went quickly viral. A 2017 accounting placed Solomon’s worth at well over 2 Trillion dollars. His worth existed in jewels, gold and metals, land and industry. Most likely, a proper estimate compared to today may well be incalculable. 

The task fell upon Solomon and his wealth to finally build the temple of rest for the Ark, which had traveled more miles than necessary in search of the land that God had picked out for the central seat of authority, ultimately Jerusalem. God's intentions leaned toward how his people operated, not himself.

As the Ark of the Covenant was formally placed, by the proper delivery of the Levites, into a demonstrable array of angelic statues and holy surroundings, the Holy Spirit swirled about in a cyclone of dark cloud. The priests were hushed and fogged away as God willowed outward and upward in a thick vapor, a similar position to how he had portrayed himself for such a long time in the desert, rising above the ark. The cloud would stop as they traveled, and that’s where they would spend the night. Where God once hid the Jewish tribes in his cloudy form during the day, as some have suggested, God now billowed a giant puff in the same form, above the temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem. The temple was declared appropriate. The cloud then ceased to be a form for God to take. 

This magnificent symbol of God’s moving presence makes for a perfect description for every big budget movie producer, an Ark on parade toward a temple in ecstatic, cloudy blossom. So reported the author of Kings, a two volume book in the final of the four Deuteronomistic history scriptures. 

One might think that God stopped traveling and parked himself forever in that stone, man-made abode. The temple grounds were temporary, though. All that's left is a Wailing Wall. God isn’t confined to a temple, much less an Ark, so something else is going on here. 

The Ark ceased to focus the presence of God as the temple took that fixed place. True, the thingness of the Ark and the magnificent temple were temporary, but what they represent, right down to their design, points to a lasting element of God's presence. God dwells with us, and wants us to dwell with him.

Now, if we juxtapose the presence of God in Solomon’s temple against Jesus wandering among the Samarian countryside, as do the liturgists who composed today’s scripture collection, the contrast is stark. So, if this change of venue isn’t about God making adjustments in his character and essence, then what’s this about?

In the great temple grounds of Solomon’s temple, people brought their sacrifices to atone for their sins, crying out for God to help them. The temple, arrayed in Solomon’s gold and jewels, stunned both visitors and residents alike. None, though, but one at a time, once a year, dared to enter the Holy of Holies in that temple because in God’s presence they would be overcome and die. The temple sat amidst the population of the Jewish nation, calling them to gather to Jerusalem. 

Wind the clock forward to the fourth decade of our Gregorian calendar when Jesus lived, and how does the incarnated, divine Christ exist in his earthly presence? Not among a jeweled palace, certainly. Jesus has no home. He predicts, correctly, that the temple would soon be destroyed. The physical, central location which Jesus calls “My Father’s house” was obliterated in 40 years.

Jesus, the divine presence incarnated as human, unbound by a temple or untouchable Ark, instead traveled from village to village. He cured everyone who reached out to touch him. He made himself available to the outskirts where faithful Jews, fallen Jews, ostracized Jews, and every source of Gentiles lived far from Jerusalem’s center. People rushed to touch him as he arrived, Mark explains, and they were instantly healed. Unlike the temple ritual of substitution, where a priest carried the woes of the people, everyone within reach of Jesus Christ cried out for forgiveness of sins and for healing. 

The introduction of Jesus the Christ as human did not change who God was. God’s incarnation as man changed who we were. We are drawn to divinity, but now as scripture told us from the beginning, God took human form. The mystery here is how God remains who God has always been, and will always be, once he adopts humanity to himself by becoming human.

Where temple visitors solemnly brought sacrifice, and alms, Jesus brought himself as the offering. No longer would the temple ritual of sacrifice make sense to humans as an offering to God for sin. Ritual sacrifice was finished. The temple itself, even as the residence of the Father, visible in the Holy Spirit, was temporary just like the Ark.

While Jesus was present as a human, theologians say that the embodiment of the Holy Trinity existed with him. “If you see me, you see the Father.” At Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit’s indwelling was revealed. Baptism by water took a leap as Jesus revealed that the Spirit was to be made available to all who would allow him in.

This transition seems to be a new God, but what is about to happen is something new for us, the creation. In God’s adoption, God more than resembles humanity. He gathers humanity unto himself.

The edges of Jesus’ garment written about in Mark as tassels, were braided fringes, hanging fragments of cloth, wound into markers unique to the man who wore them. Rather than let a garment fray apart, the tassels also sewed up the edges, so to speak. Some might consider Jesus’ tassels as badges of his rank among the people, but this misses the point. Jesus was not ostentatious, ribboned like a showman or some shameless shaman. His tassels reflected authority as would any man. 

In more common array today, tassels are like collars on a woman’s blouse, or cuffs on a man’s sleeve. Collars and cuffs, like tassels, were not something that people would be so rude as to touch. Jesus’ garment tassels hung almost to the ground, along the edges of his clothes. While it’s too personal to touch a man’s shirt cuffs as he walks by, it was also very personal to reach out and touch Jesus’ tassels.

In a very real way, the almost magical result of touching Jesus’ tassels is similar to the hoped for response from God by those who came to the temple, and those who followed the Ark. Some may think of God on performance in a temple or above the Ark, or even performing in the crowds by allowing his tassels to be touched. God, though, in both cases is not performing. God reveals himself as accessible. Jesus allowed access to his tassels, one person at a time, in much the way that God allowed access to the Holy of Holies, one person at a time. God is no different, but the conditions of the people were very different. 

And, like the temple changed from a podium for the Father to speak to the prophets while embraced by the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ podium stood in every village temple, on hillsides, from the seat of a boat, and then upon a cross. 

God’s availability, which was surely accessible to anyone who has ever called upon him, has been unique and various throughout Old and New Testament scriptures. Behind each presence, though, God has been the same. 

Since the Pentecost, the Holy Spirit lives in us as holy temples. God had already certainly indwelled both men and women in history. With everyone following Christ, who turns their lives over to God as believers, is the indwelling any different? Is God any different now? Isn’t the healing, grace-filled God the same? Today’s indwelling is the current change to the human condition, not to God’s condition. In this “age,” the term that Jesus himself used, we individually have the Word of God written upon our hearts, the authority of the Father upon our lips, and the expectant gathering in the next life following our death.

It is us that have changed from the beginning days of creation. Our current age is also a transition, even as we fully enjoy the life of God within us. From a biblical view, in fact, we are being restored to the initial relationship that God had with the first creation — wholly communicating and joined to God.

We have two more reminders of this age’s transition taking place in us, while God is still the same. One is the bread of life, which began at the fall with man and woman toiling to feed themselves. Then manna fell to feed the wandering Jews. Then, Jesus turned bread and water into his flesh and blood for us to consume, a continual transforming of us into a holy partnership with God.

The second is the Word of God, which began in conversation with God at the creation. Then distanced as humans abandoned God, the Word morphed into scriptures that reminded a holy people who the creator was as sin absorbed into everything. After the living Word of Jesus proclaimed the new age and how it will end, we now have the full complement of scriptures and commentary to understand how God reveals himself every minute of every day.

Again, God remains who God is, but he draws us closer and closer to him using everything at our disposal to convince us, convert us, and gather us to him. God’s presence remains faithful because he yearns for us. 

Clouds, arks, tassels, bread and wine, Word and even temples and cathedrals  are each God’s moments for arrival, gatherings for events, and grace-filled vehicles for the same purpose. Revelation for us to glorify him and to be joined to him in that glory.

Churches vary across the globe in orthodoxy, prophecy, teaching, pastoring, evangelism, apostleship, and icons. All reveal the wonder of God’s character and presence, and his relationship to us. God takes us from different places, different languages, different cultures, difference genders, and different ages — as we are — in order to take us where he is.

God remains who God is. 

We must become willing disciples, allowing God to make us one with him. 


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