I am currently writing a women’s retreat for a large church in Alpharetta, Georgia based on the Temple. That was my one-word assignment: write a retreat on the Temple. Let me tell you, this has been the most challenging one yet! But after many, many long hours of research and study (and sweat and tears) it all boils down to one sentence: You are God’s dwelling place in which God lives by his spirit.

This one sentence undoes thousands of years of temple building! Let’s do a brief history lesson on the Tabernacle/Temple thing. In the beginning, God designed a perfect dwelling place in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve but when they sinned, they were expelled. From that point on, fellowship with God was broken and yet somehow, God still desired to dwell with us. As we follow the story from Genesis to Exodus, we see the people wandering in the wilderness after God delivered them from Egypt and Pharaoh’s vicious pursuit. At this point, God made a plan for them to build a mobile tabernacle, a “meeting tent,” so that his presence could go with them everywhere, and gave Moses very specific instructions for building it.

Now let’s fast forward to the Temple. For Jewish people, God’s Temple meant something very specific: it meant the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple that was built by King Solomon. The Temple that housed the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies. The Temple that was destroyed by the Babylonians, and then rebuilt by Zerubbabel, before being destroyed a second time by the Romans in 70 AD. The Temple which now remains only as a single wall, the Wailing Wall, is still a sacred place for Jewish people. 

Now we move on to the arrival of our Messiah, Jesus. When Jesus came, he completed God’s full plan for the Temple by becoming the temple himself. As high priest, Jesus offers the best and most complete sacrifice at the altar and allows us to be tabernacled with him, becoming the dwelling place ourselves.

Hebrews 9:11-14 (Common English Bible)

¹¹ But Christ has appeared as the high priest of the good things that have happened. He passed through the greater and more perfect meeting tent, which isn’t made by human hands (that is, it’s not a part of this world). ¹² He entered the holy of holies once for all by his own blood, not by the blood of goats or calves, securing our deliverance for all time. ¹³ If the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkled ashes of cows made spiritually contaminated people holy and clean, ¹⁴ how much more will the blood of Jesus wash our consciences clean from dead works in order to serve the living God? He offered himself to God through the eternal Spirit as a sacrifice without any flaw.

Paul goes on later to explain the completion of the plan in Ephesians 2:

 ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

This is the great charge and challenge for today. As a dwelling place for God, how will you reflect his Spirit to the world in a winsome, inviting way? Do people see enough of God’s Spirit in you that they want to come in and know more? Are you a reflection of his glory and grace?

May we strive to be an open door to others until everyone hears.

(Georgia friends, you are invited to attend this retreat: February 22nd, Midway United Methodist Church, Alpharetta, GA. Registration forms will be available soon on their website.)

Peachtree City UMC