The Lord Enters His Temple

Today at 3:30 PM the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs will take the field at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. Hopefully you think about more than this fact during this sermon. Because, actually, there is something much more important to discuss this morning. And as the Baineses’ prayer group pointed out to me, since the game doesn’t start until 3:30, I can make this sermon as loong as I want. I find it pretty interesting actually. I’m not one for sports analogies in general. But to me it’s interesting that this morning, there is a fit. What we’ll see at 3:30 PM today is a comparatively pathetic parody of what we see happen in our passages. Gathered around our potato chips and chicken wings, we will witness history: the rightful champions emerging from their locker rooms to take up their rightful residence for their moment of glory. Maybe some of this spectacle can be redeemed and redirected to give glory to the Lord, which is what I hope happens during our time in the ministry of the word.

We’re in the season of Epiphany. During this time in the church calendar, we reflect on several moments where Christ is revealed to be who he truly is, something the world around him didn’t have eyes to see. These moments like the wise men coming to worship him, the moment of his baptism, the transfiguration all show us something of Jesus’ special, unique glory. In this morning’s revelation, we see the baby Jesus presented at the temple. The church has celebrated that moment on Feb. 2, 40 days after Christmas, because that’s when the levitical law allowed Mary to come back to the temple after giving birth.

A Jewish boy being presented at the temple at the appropriate time, 40 days after his birth, was fitting, even normal. But this isn’t just a time to swing by the sanctuary. There’s another Old Testament law being fulfilled in this moment. And beyond that, this isn’t just any Jewish boy. I want us to look at those two points in our devotion this morning: First: There’s another Old Testament law being fulfilled when Jesus is presented at the Temple. Second: this is not any ordinary boy entering the Temple.

Because it lines up with our Old Testament reading, let’s take the second point first. This is not any ordinary boy entering the Temple. In Malachi 3, we are given the promise that the Lord will enter his sanctuary. And we might think that’s a good and appropriate thing. But Malachi’s message was a warning. There the Israelites say they seek the Lord, and the Lord says he will come. But maybe not in the manner they are hoping. The Lord’s message through Malachi is that he will come to set them straight. He comes to judge so that they will put their house, HIS house, in order to painfully and suddenly reestablish right worship of God there. If you read the rest of Malachi, the Lord’s coming is described as burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. So when we see in our reading that the Lord will visit his temple suddenly, we need to think about what this meant to the original hearers in Malachi’s time.

I should say something about one word in particular here. It’s the focus of my doctoral work. It’s the word _suddenly_. The Hebrew word for _suddenly_ is almost always bad news in the Old Testament. When something happens suddenly, the person experiencing that suddenness is having a very bad day. Suddenly, they experience calamity, or death in almost every single occurrence. When you take that word into the New Testament, however, you see a change. That word is still sometimes used to talk about judgment, but it starts to be used to tell the story of miraculous events like Paul’s calling, when the voice and light appear _suddenly_. Or the sudden transfiguration, or the sudden appearance of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And that’s because, that word, I think, is a hint that God as king is breaking through into his world at that moment of suddenness.

And so we see that when the baby Jesus, the Lord, suddenly comes to his temple, at this point in the story about Jesus, God’s suddenness is transformed from judgment to simply an overwhelmingly meaningful appearance of his glory, a breaking into his world, and even his temple, in a way that delays his sudden _judgment_ in favor of meekness and gentleness. When the Lord warned he would come as a consuming fire, he comes first as a baby. That fiery judgment is still coming, but the Lord whose character is always to show mercy is slow to anger, and he visits his temple as a baby, not yet as righteous and terrible judge.

What overwhelms, when Jesus visits is his glory, is his presence that if you were there and you had eyes that revealed the spiritual realm, you would have been blinded by the radiance of that baby. And he rightfully entered his Father’s house. After waiting 40 days, what might have felt like the 40 years of the wilderness wandering, the Lord present among his people, rightfully visits his temple. This is no ordinary boy visiting the temple.

This brings me to the second point I wanted to look at this morning. Mary bringing Jesus to the temple after 40 days fulfills one Old Testament law, the law for when a mother can return to the sanctuary after giving birth. But there’s another Old Testament Law being fulfilled as Jesus came to the temple that morning, one that foreshadows his ultimate purpose for coming. That law is the Law of the firstborn.

Since the Exodus, the firstborn child belong to the Lord. The way to give something to the Lord was to offer it as a sacrifice. And God was gracious to allow there to be a substitute. An animal could stand in for that firstborn child. And so Mary and Joseph were there to offer their son to the Lord, through the animal sacrifice of a ram for well-off Israelites, or in this case, for the poor, a pair of turtledoves. The son was sacrificed that day. When the Lord visits his temple it’s to be sacrificed, not to judge. When the Lord visits his temple, he shows his humility, his gentleness, his long forbearance. The wrath he will bring, he brings upon himself at the Cross. There he purchases for us, with his own blood, one last, far-reaching forbearance before the judgment he will bring at the end of the world. Before he brings eternal fire to the wicked, he has given them, us, almost 2000 years of grace. Where he takes on himself the curse that should be on us. When he takes on himself, the punishment that should be on us. At the Cross, he is shamed so that our shame before God can be brought to nothing. When we should have died for our sins before God, he dies in our place. We have had 2000 years to take hold of that grace, in a delay of the impending judgment on the wicked. How much longer will he wait? No one knows that day or that hour. But as we wait, we look back at that moment in gratitude and in awe at that moment when the Lord entered his temple and we respond with Simeon:

Luke 2:29–32 NRSV

29 “Master, Lord, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

It’s in that moment that we see true glory. A true champion enter his rightful place. We see true strength in his restraint and something that is truly praiseworthy. A moment truly worth celebrating. A moment of incalculable meaning and worth, never to be repeated in the history of the world. The king, the Lord has visited his temple.

And so, what does this mean for us in our lives? So many of the main ideas of our journey through the season of epiphany boil down to one truth: Jesus Christ is God incarnate. His coming was special, unique. So in that light, how do I live my life? How do I treat my neighbor? How do I treat God? I think the answer, if Jesus Christ is God incarnate, is to look to the first commandment. You shall have no other gods before him. If Scripture wants you to be still and know that the Lord is God, that starting point confronts all our idols. You’ll remember from last week that so often an idol is a good thing made into an ultimate thing. Jesus is the ultimate thing, so all your other ultimate things need a big demotion. If Jesus is God, your family is not. If Jesus is God, your health is not. If Jesus is God, your church is not. If Jesus is God, football is not. Malachi tells us that the Lord will cleanse his temple with fire. If that is not the work done in your heart with the fire of the Holy Spirit, it will be the fire of judgment. So let us reserve the temple of our hearts for the only one who belongs there and when he shows up, we can rest in the peace that he brings, just like Simeon did that day a thousand years earlier, and echo the words of the psalm today: O Lord of hosts, happy are they who put their trust in you.