When Temples Fall

Introduction

I’ve been reading a book entitled, Stars Beneath Us, by Paul Wallace. Paul is an astrophysicist and, currently, is teaching how science and theology intersect with one another at Wartburg Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa.

In the introduction to his book, Paul Wallace writes about struggles he had as a child trying to make sense of his love of science which seemingly diverged from his love of God. In the tradition that Paul grew up in, he was instructed that he needed to choose one or the other.

He was distressed with the origins of where we came from. Was the theory of evolution correct or did God create the world? It seemed as if it had to be one or the other. Soon, young Paul became obsessed with not only where we came from but also where we were going.

A book by Carl Sagan seemed to give him the answers about the future that he was looking for. He saw four images all looking out over the same landscape. The first showed beautiful green coastline with an expansive blue sea beyond that and a beautiful yellow sun in the sky.

Despite the beauty of the first image, there was a foreboding message which read, “The Last Perfect Day.” From there, the book showed him changes in the earth as the Sun grew older… expanded and turned into a red giant. Gradually, the grass browned, the seas evaporated, barren lands replaced paradise... and the final image showed a wasteland with a devastatingly powerful red sun in the sky.

The message read that this -would- eventually happen… but that it would be billions of years in the future. Still, Paul believed the message. The end would come.

The preteen looked at the house around him and examined the bricks… those bricks that he had come to take for granted and had come to expect that they would always stand firm… Paul asked himself; on what day will these bricks be separated? Because they would be ripped a sunder, there was no longer doubt. It wasn’t just a philosophical possibility… it was truth. Those walls that he had grown up trusting to protect him would one day fall. The world as he knew it would someday no longer exist.

The Temple

In our Gospel Reading today, Jesus is found not in a brick home but in a stone temple… a grand temple. A temple with walls that extended out a quarter of a mile with stones placed 10 stories into the sky.

It was a marvel of the ancient world and even in today’s time such a structure would attract attention from throughout the world. The plaza of this temple was so huge that 29 football fields could fit inside this enormous structure. In Christ’s time this temple in Jerusalem was the largest sacred site in the entire Roman Empire.

But perhaps even more impressive was the understanding that this temple was no ordinary building but the very house of God. It contained the holiest of holies… God’s very presence could be encountered deep within the confines of this amazing superstructure.

To say that this place was awe-inspiring for the wandering pilgrim would be an incredible understatement. And to fathom that such a place could ever be destroyed would have seemed impossible. This temple, though remodeled by King Herod the Great, had stood for over 500 years by the time Christ stood in the temple that day. The continued existence of the temple was something that the people had come to not only hope for… but to expect. There would never be a time when the Temple in Jerusalem did not exist—of this the people were certain.

Unbreakable Places

It brings to mind the things that I have come to expect to remain as “permanent” in my life.

I remember as a young child expecting that I would always and forever live with my parents. Although I had dreams of what I would be when I grew up… I some how never expected that growing up meant that I would move out of my parents’ house.

I remember after Ashley and I were married and we had Luke that I somehow expected Luke would always be a baby that I could cradle in my arms. Even now I have the expectations that we will always have our three boys at home as sweet young children… even though I know they will one day grow up just as I did.

Gwen Sayler

At the beginning of this week I had an expectation break when I received the news that one of my professors from seminary had died.

Gwen was uniquely gifted in her proclamation of the gospel. She had been a strong advocate for women’s rights throughout her life. She had impacted hundreds of pastors over her nearly 30 years of instruction at the seminary. She was a pillar of the Wartburg Community… and although she had plans to retire at the end of this school year, she seemed to be in nearly perfect health.

While we know that we all at some point will complete our baptismal journey, Gwen’s death came so quickly that, as one person said, the news of her death made it feel like the earth had shaken beneath our feet. Someone we had come to expect to be around was gone.

And when someone that we expect to be around maybe not forever but at least for years to come dies… especially when they die suddenly, it can indeed feel like the earth itself is rattling beneath our feet. And our expectations are rattled in part because someone we love is gone from this world… but expectations are also rattled because those loses are stark reminders about our own fragility of life.

Expectations and Christ

On that day 2,000 years ago as Jesus prophesied in the enormous Temple of Jerusalem, he rattled expectations. For passerby pilgrims who heard Jesus proclaiming that someday not a stone would be left on stone the very idea seemed nigh on impossible.

As much as I had come to expect the continued life of my professor for at least another decade or more to come… as much as I somehow expect that our three boys will always be in our household… as much as I expected as a child that I would forever live with my parents… what Jesus was saying to the crowd that day would have been even harder to swallow.

As much as the loss of a loved one or a mentor might shake us, death and transition in life is something that we are somewhat accustomed to. But for someone to say that the Grand House where the Lord your God dwells within would be destroyed… how would the people even begin to process something like that?

A few short decades after Jesus had been crucified and resurrected, the temple was indeed destroyed, and that reality is indeed what the people ended up facing.

But as we read the Gospel of Luke it’s important that we remember when this gospel was actually written and to whom it had been written.

As this Gospel was being spread throughout the ancient world, it was being given to those who had already experienced the destruction of the temple. The Jews had already rebelled against Rome… Rome had already come back with a vengeance; destroying Jerusalem, killing an estimated 1.1 million people and destroying the 500-year-old temple, leaving only remnants of the western wall because the stones were too large to bring down.

As we remember that the Gospel of Luke would have been heard by those who had already experienced that devastation, it changes the tone of the story for us. You see, the Gospel of Luke was not written to a people who felt secure in great stone buildings with a God housed on their side with imposing walls to keep out invaders.

No… the Gospel of Luke was written to a people who were on the run. Jesus’ words speak to the reality of what the people had already experienced. The rebellion had been squashed. The temple destroyed. Judaism was devastated. And as much as the Jews were hurting, the young Christian church was in even more trouble.

Small Christian groups would form only to be hunted down and exterminated. To those fledgling Christian groups, these words of Christ were not breaking expectations of a perfect world but instead spoke to the reality of what they had their parents had experienced. It seemed as the ground itself quaked beneath their feet.

The Good News

But that also meant that this message that would have seemed to speak of an oncoming judgement in Jesus’ time becomes a message of hope to those in Luke’s time.

For in the midst of these words of devastation and even a promise of continued trials, Jesus also declares that he will give them words and wisdom that none of their opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.

Jesus declares that God will not abandon them, even in the midst of the great Churban (destruction). Even as relationships fall apart, even as ones who were loved died, even as the walls of the temple come crumbling town that God would still be with them. God remains steadfast.

For the people in Luke’s time, Jesus’ words would not have been a foreshadowing of horrible things to come but instead good news in the midst of the events that they were already going through.

Good News for Us

This is good news for us as well as we are reminded of the faithfulness of God in the moments we feel shaken It is a reminder of the steadfast rock that we put our trust in that is not a building or people… but instead the steadfast rock of Christ that cannot not shaken; the rock that remains firm in the midst of the mightiest of tremors.

And though the people that we care about will one day die… though we ourselves will one day die… though the building around us will one day come down and the bricks will be separated whether by machine or force of nature… God will remain constant; unshakeable; faithful even as God remains constant, unshakeable, and faithful to us today.

For it is this God, this constant unshakeable, extraordinarily faithful God… this God that does not falter even as the kingdoms war, as disease runs rampant, as the earth itself shakes and the pillars that we relied on in life are toppled… it is this unwavering God that claims us in the waters of baptism as his own.

God’s claim on you through the waters and the words of promise cannot be shaken. While bricks might be ripped asunder by quaking ground or ruckus army, the bond that God forged with you in the waters would not feel the tug even of a black hole.

Know that peace that comes from our Lord and Savior. Know what it means to have that solid rock to stand on. Know that the foundation of Christ in our lives is a foundation that is steadfast because it relies not on us or our own faithfulness… but on the faithfulness of God. And as we hear from Jesus through the Gospel of Luke today, God is ever-faithful even in the greatest of chaos.

Even when Temples fall, God remains. On Christ the solid rock we stand. Peace be with you. Amen.