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There's No Temple Like It

            It was constructed in 13 years by over 150,000 workers (as compared to Miller Park constructed in 4 years by 3,600 workers). It contained cedar and cypress wood cut by the King of Tyre and floated down the Mediterranean coast to Israel, since none of the local wood was of such high quality. It was detailed by a master craftsmen hired from another country – the world’s best. It was girded by large stones as big as a semi-trailer. It was decorated and furnished with a lavish amount of gold. And perhaps its most unusual feature was that no chisel, hammer or other man-made tool of iron was used on the building site for its construction. The Old Testament temple promised by God, planned by David and put up by Solomon shall never have a rival. There’s No Temple Like It.

Since the only true God is a loving God

            This “wow” factor of the temple was part of God’s plan to impress the world, like the intent of any of the world’s most impressive buildings today. Except, God had something more in mind, namely, to attract people to something more spectacular: his love for all sinners. Listen to the very first words out of King Solomon’s mouth as he stands in front of the altar to dedicate the temple in today’s section of the Bible. “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below – you who keep your covenant of love.” Plenty of other gods during Solomon’s day peddled their wares, just as today’s consumers of spirituality can step up to a buffet of world religions and deities. But the only true God is a loving God. All other religions and deities relate to people with something other than a covenant of love. They are based on a covenant of law. Laws demand, “You must do this,” and a covenant means there is an agreement or promise. So a covenant of law is a system of religion promising that you will receive the benefits of that religion if you meet a certain expectation of behavior. In Solomon’s day Molech the fire idol expected the sacrifice of little babies. Baal and Ashtoreth, the fertility gods, demanded fertility rites which were really perverted sex acts.  Today churches next door, cults appealing to millions, and even religious organizations that look and sound like civic groups preach and practice the same covenant of law. Good deeds are badges that earn a person favor with a divine being. Faithful adherence to a system of behavior offers followers a better life now and in eternity.

            An even more compelling covenant of law is found not on the web sites of world religions or in the worship buildings of neighborhood churches but much closer to home. Here in the human heart.  “You need to be a better person for God to love you,” a nagging voice whispers to our guilt-ridden soul. Give more. Curse less. Pray more. Worry less. It’s the voice of natural human reason. The logic that you can’t get something for nothing. A helpful principle for economy but a harmful poison for getting right with God. Think about it. Demanding that a person behave according to certain standards to earn God’s forgiveness or his answer to prayer or eternal life in heaven only leaves us wondering, “Have I done it right? And have I done enough?” I may donate a double-portion of charity and pray a thousand Lord’s Prayers and work hours and hours in a homeless shelter and teach my children to be good friends and make ethical decisions … but a covenant of law is never enough to know for sure if I’m right with God. As far as God is concerned, it’s never enough.  Period. 

            Today we heard the apostle Paul confess that he grew up in this covenant of law, “advancing in Judaism … extremely zealous” (Galatians 1:14). Without question people who subscribe to a law-based religious system can be very zealous and sincere, as much as participants in American Idol, but the issue isn’t how genuine, zealous, or sincere a person is. It’s whether their performance has what it takes. The Bible answers that question later in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse” (3:10). Anyone who relies on obeying the law in order to get right with God will be judged according to that law, which demands not sincerity but perfection. And when the law doesn’t find that its demands have been met, it issues a curse that separates a person from a holy, perfect God and his blessings. To put it simply, what a person is hoping for by trying to keep the law is lost because a person cannot keep the law. The apostle Paul discovered the only answer to this dilemma. “God, who … called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son” (1:16). The only religion that really works is one not that we perform but one that comes to us, revealed to us in Jesus Christ, given to us freely from God.

            One seminary professor who, on a beautiful spring day, sensed that his students were no longer attentive suddenly closed his notebook and stopped talking. He picked up a marker, approached the whiteboard, and drew a huge arrow pointing straight down. “If you understand that,” he told his students as he walked out the door, “you know what it means to be a Christian.” Now he had their attention. Nobody moved as they stared at the arrow, logically concluding it had something to do with going to hell. The next time the class met every student sat ready to listen and learn, wondering about the arrow, dreading its curse. The professor explained, “The arrow means that God comes down. There is nothing we can do to make our way up to God. God came down in Jesus, and still comes down in bread and wine, and in the water of baptism and the Bible’s message of his covenant love. God always comes down.” Before the completion of the Bible and the institution of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, even before the birth of Jesus, God came down to our world in the symbolism of the Old Testament temple. There’s No Temple Like It.

Since the only true worship is a lavish worship

            This dedication of the temple was not about how great King Solomon and the Israelites were. It was about how great God was – and they didn’t dare come before their great God and offer him paltry praise. So King Solomon and all of Israel offered sacrifices on a most lavish scale. Over 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep were sacrificed as lavish worship to a God of love during a two-week celebration. This lavish kind of worship continued at the temple for generations, and made this temple known all around the world as the place where the only true worship was a lavish worship. Foreigners would hear about God’s saving love and come to Jerusalem to see the temple. There they would come to know the only true God.

            That lavishly decorated temple in Jerusalem has long since been destroyed but loving activity of God and lavish worship for God is not gone. Today God’s special temple has taken on a new form – his house of believers. The Bible explains that we and all believers are “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:20-22). Just as the devout believers in Jerusalem must have been awed when they laid eyes on the temple constructed so silently without their modern tools of iron, we marvel today as God builds his temple, the communion of saints (all believers). This Holy Christian Church is a house not made with human hands, but built silently and supernaturally through the ages, as the Holy Spirit breathes the words of forgiveness and blows the flame of faith. And so dead, useless sinners become living stones placed and positioned just right in God’s temple to worship him, serve others, and endure forever.

            We who are living stones don’t just come to church, we are the church. Wherever we are, there is the church, the temple of God, the covenant of love and the lavish worship that we offer to God. Those who are foreign to the saving love of God will be attracted to that love by noticing our lavish worship of God. The expensive effort on our part to make time and produce activity in our busy lives that reflects our love for God. The free forgiveness we offer. The heavenly hope we follow. We are today’s temple, attracting those who seek God. There’s No Temple Like It.

            Put the Washington Monument on top of the Space Needle on top of the St. Louis Arch. That’s what it would take to equal the height of the tallest building in the world – the Taipei 101 Skyscraper in Taiwan. Its eclipse of all other buildings in the world is not going to last long, however, because the Burj Dubai tower is already being built to surpass it by 500 – 1,000 feet. And no doubt there will be another taller building than that. But there is one building that has no rival and will never be outdone or outdecorated. God’s temple, constructed once of stone and built today of saints everywhere who trust in his love and lavish him with worship wherever we are. There’s No Temple Like It. There’s no temple like us. Because there’s no God like ours. Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (http://www.gracedowntown.org/) on June 10, 2007

Services

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Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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