Look Out, Pilgrim: Epilogue

Symbolism, then, is not some secondary concern, some mere curiosity. In a very real sense, symbolism is more important than anything else for the life of man.

-James Jordan

OK. I confess I've been foolin' around with this series. It sorta grew. After I wrote Look Out, Pilgrim I, I thought it was too gloomy. So I tried out #II as a balance. Then I decided to do #III for fun, to see if there was a third way to interpret the Temple symbol . At present I spend too much time in #I, I used to be a stronger advocate of #III, and I would love to live all the time in #II. That doesn't mean that this particular symbol is less than true, or subject to human whim; it means that it is larger than we supposed and encompasses more than one phase of human need and perception. Like their Creator, symbols have an endless quality about them. That's why their study keeps changing us.

Pilgrim, the way through the Temple is exciting.

Look Out, Pilgrim III

...(N)othing could hide the essential business of the Temple, which was the ritual slaughter, consumption and combustion of sacrificial cattle on a gigantic scale....To the unprepared visitor, the dignity and charity of Jewish diaspora life, the thoughtful comments and homilies of the Alexandrian synagogue, was quite lost amid the smoke of the pyres, the bellows of terrified beasts, the abattoir stench....

-Paul Johnson

A couple of weeks ago I read Ezekiel's vision of the eschatological Temple, and this quote from Paul Johnson's A History of Christianity came to mind. The fact is, that by the time of Jesus, Herod's Temple (and all it represented) had become Big Business, with a self-aggrandizing hierarchy that had completely lost touch with both the God and the people of Israel. I once heard a local Bible teacher ask, "What do you think the priests and elders did when the veil of the Temple split open on the first Good Friday?" Answer: "They stitched it up and went on business as usual." The institution had hardened to the point that any new voice other than its own could not be heard, even the voice of God in pain and thunder.

The irony is that as the Temple was hardening into judgment, God was raising up a new Temple outside its walls. A small group of disciples sat in the garden across the Kidron Valley, or walked the hills of Galilee, and the Holy Spirit brooded over them as he had once done over the temple of the Restoration. Something new was being nurtured. In time, Rome destroyed Jerusalem, and the church emerged as the Temple of God.

This is, of course, a pattern throughout history. Movements that begin in spontaneity and power harden over time and assume the posture of the True Church, and the Holy Spirit becomes attached to forms and doctrines which he resists because he will always be free. Movements begin their downward spiral as soon as they become self-conscious of the Spirit's presence, or see themselves as the last great move of God.

The question is, where is the Spirit moving today? What is going on outside the walls of our own comfortable traditions? Where are the genuine Sprit-filled leaders that God raises up through history? And how do the people of God stop the process of calcification that has made previous movements as hard as the stones of the Temple?

Pilgrim, the way through the Temple is a dangerous business.

Look Out, Pilgrim II

...(N)othing could hide the essential business of the Temple, which was the ritual slaughter, consumption and combustion of sacrificial cattle on a gigantic scale....To the unprepared visitor, the dignity and charity of Jewish diaspora life, the thoughtful comments and homilies of the Alexandrian synagogue, was quite lost amid the smoke of the pyres, the bellows of terrified beasts, the abattoir stench....

-Paul Johnson

Last week I read Ezekiel's vision of the eschatological Temple, and this quote from Paul Johnson's A History of Christianity came to mind. Johnson reminds us of the grubby and gory work that actually occurred on the grounds of Herod's Temple. It is easy to be fascinated with the death and carnage that the worshipper passed through on his way to prayer, and to draw analogies to the difficulties and suffering of the Christian life. But Johnson missed something in his description. Above all this bloody activity stood the Temple itself, calm and majestic, so bright that a pilgrim coming over the Mount of Olives had to shield his eyes when the sun reflected off its gold and polished marble.

I remember a member of our church years ago who was planning to go to South America as a medical missionary. He became an EMT because his ambulance took him to places where he could experience "real life." One of our mentors reminded him that pain and suffering were not "real life," but the results of the fall. "Real life" was the healing he brought to those in need. (And ultimately "real life" is the resurrected life of the future.) He was focusing on the carnage of the court yard, not the quiet power that rose above it.

When I was in college, I went through a particularly tough time my senior year (career, etc.). I remember finding comfort in looking at the stars. They never changed, the familiar constellations were always there. They transcended the confusion and fear that were part of my state of mind--a reminder that their was Someone out there who never changes.

Though Herod's Temple was destroyed, the "concept" of Temple has not changed. Ezekiel's vision of a glorified Temple was of an eschatological reality toward which we are drawn. As Rosenstock taught, the future is not a fearful unknown, but a living reality in the mind of God that shapes the present and helps us define who we are. Past, present, and future are one in Christ. We taste that future in our best and highest moments: in worship, in our stained glass sanctuaries, in our fellowship meals together. Those are the times that the future world and this world overlap. The Temple is a symbol of that future into which all the world is moving.

Pilgrim, the way through the Temple is a glorious business.

Look Out, Pilgrim

...(N)othing could hide the essential business of the Temple, which was the ritual slaughter, consumption and combustion of sacrificial cattle on a gigantic scale....To the unprepared visitor, the dignity and charity of Jewish diaspora life, the thoughtful comments and homilies of the Alexandrian synagogue, was quite lost amid the smoke of the pyres, the bellows of terrified beasts, the abattoir stench....

-Paul Johnson

This morning I was reading Ezekiel's vision of the eschatological Temple, and this quote from Johnson's A History of Christianity came to mind. I've read (and heard) countless lectures on the symbolism of the Tabernacle and the furnishings of the Temple, including a description of the Temple as seen from the Mount of Olives on a clear morning, when the sun, reflecting off gold and polished marble, blinded the pilgrim's eyes. But none of the commentators and allegorists tell the rest of the story quite like Johnson. I've always had a suspicion that under all the beautiful imagery there was another reality.

I have an aversion to blood, something I'm not proud of, but there it is. I've found myself wondering what it would have been like to be an Israelite lad taking his lamb to the place of slaughter. When it came down to it, would I become nauseous or faint? All that blood. Was there a stain on the earth when the Tabernacle moved on? How did they handle it at Herod's Temple, which had a paved court yard? Troughs?

I've thanked God often that I am on this side of the covenantal shift. Jesus became the propitiatory sacrifice for sin, the fellowship offering that brings peace between men, and the burnt offering of total dedication and worship. At a more selfish level, I am glad that I don't have to lay hands on a lamb and watch its throat cut. I am also grateful that the sacrifices of the Old Testament passed through the cross and became the bloodless oblation of the Eucharist. I much prefer bread and wine.

It is not my intention here to get into the doctrines of the atonement or of the Supper. I'm thinking about this at a personal/corporate level. If the Temple in the New Covenant is the church, where are the parallels? Cynically, I could say that the church (at least evangelicals) are willing to sacrifice human beings for orthodoxy and orthopraxy in a skinny minute. But that is, as I said, cynical.

So let me put it this way. I have loved the church and church life because of "the dignity and charity of diaspora life" and the "thoughtful comments and homilies." Stained glass, Easter lilies, the singing, the cleanness, the exhilaration of worship, the acceptance of fellow believers. I like the view of the Temple from the Mount of Olives, a foretaste of the eschaton.

But there is another side to life with Christ within me. I have said more than once that God is ruthless with my sin. Ruthless, at least, in comparison to my excuses and weak apologies. There is the smell of the blood of an unwilling animal deep within my heart, where God cuts and slices because He is much more concerned with my salvation than I am. And at a corporate level--well, love is easy at dinner in the church’s fellowship hall, where we look at each other through stained glass. But in the parking lot, at work, in the unguarded moments where the fear or anger or hurt of the other emerges, where either through a slip of the tongue or a genuine confession the truth comes out, when there is blood on the pavement, when the stained glass shatters and love becomes a call to die--that’s a different matter. And I’m speaking of relating to other believers. To reach out in love and acceptance to the people of the world, to rub shoulders with the irresponsible, the cynical, the controlling, the floundering, and that frustrating unbeliever who seems to find love and sacrifice easier than I, requires a rending that no man in his own strength can produce. Someone else must wield the knife.

Pilgrim, the way through the Temple is a messy business.