15 November 2015
Mark 13 1-8 Jesus foretells the destruction of the Temple
The lectionary has skipped over a chapter in Mark, and Jesus has now arrived at Jerusalem. We miss out Palm Sunday, donkey, Hosannas, excitement, expectation and the overturning of the money tables in the Temple.
Temple is key to this story. It had been in construction for 50 years, by this point. It was massive. The plaza was built to hold a million people. It was the size of 6 football pitches. The Temple, at least according to some accounts, was the height of a modern 20 story building. It was covered in gold leaf and the spikes to stop the birds pooing on the roof, were spikes of gold. Josephus waxes lyrically about it, and even accounting for some exaggeration for political purposes, the place was unlike anything built at that time. For those who have seen the Acropolis in Athens, this was an order of magnitude larger.
It was the Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey of the day. It was extraordinary in concept and in expenditure. It was the centre of the Jewish life, the hub of its nationality and essential to its religion. It was an onion. Depending on who you were you could visit the layer of the onion set aside for you. At the heart, the Holy of Holies, was the Ark of the covenant. Here, once a year, on the Day of Atonement the High Priest was allowed to enter, but only with a belt and rope, just in case he died and needed pulling out without others going in. There he would be closest to God, for God was there, of all places, they believed God was there.
The place was a massive economy. With between 250,000 and 750,000 visitors from outside Jerusalem at the Passover, the Temple sustained much of the fabric of Jerusalem. Much of the countryside was set aside to provide lambs for slaughter. It was key to life. It had its own currency – hence the money changers.
Mecca attracts millions to the place. One of the elements of Islam is the need to visit Mecca once, at least. Ditto Judaism. It was the symbol of the nation, national pride and love. It was the home of God.
Joanna and I have been involved in parishes where the building is more central to the thinking of the flock than the underpinning love of God. Deans of cathedrals must find this a temptation. When the church building becomes the Temple.
At a funeral I say those words, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and we talked last week about the Isis destruction of Nineveh. Ultimately the physical things we love will be gone. Growing spiritually is about moving beyond the love of stuff. What does it profit someone if they gain the whole world but lose their soul?
Jesus responds to the awe of the disciples with the reality that one day the whole lot will collapse. It did in 70AD, burnt to the ground by the Romans, along with the hopes and aspirations of a nation.
Jesus also tells them that the Temple will be rebuilt in three days. Foolish rubbish, unless the presence of God in the world is not the building, but the man Jesus himself. The disciples had to get to grips with the Temple being the white elephant and Christ being the Temple for all-time. An indestructible temple.
If you chose to put your faith in the God of Christ, then life is much less predictable than putting it in the gold leaf of the temple, the money in the bank, the apartment, the house, the furniture the ‘immeuble’ of life are, generally less risky. Finally, Paul takes the Temple further. He talks of our bodies being the Temple of the Holy Spirit and the writers to the Hebrews talks of Christ being the new Temple. Look around you at the people, the Temples of God. Engaging with this unpredictable God is the way of Christ, in the Hebrews lesson, as one sharing‘paroxysms’ of love. That is unpredictable, but is definitely a life worth living.