The Temple

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Good morning Chapel family, and welcome to the second Sunday of Advent. In case you’re wondering about my hand, last week I had a another surgery to address the genetic condition that I have (thanks, dad). So hopefully after a few months of physical therapy, I’ll be able to straighten out my fingers again; maybe even play the guitar again. I’m also hoping that 2024 will be a year that I don’t need any surgery on any part of my body—that would be a great year!

So…we are taking this Advent season to think about the concept of Emmanuel, which in Hebrew means “God with us.” Why is that so important?

Well, because if God is not with us, bad things happen. I was talking to my friend the other day, and he said, “I’m so embarrassed. I was driving on 287, in traffic. And I found myself sort of competing with this one other car to get ahead and move through the traffic. And before I knew what I was doing, I rolled down my window, and I made a very unfriendly gesture.” I said, “Did you really?” He said, “I know—it just kind of came out.” I was talking to another friend, and he said, “You know, my family used to go and pick out our Christmas tree together, but we don’t do that anymore. Because every time we go, we argue, and someone takes way too long to make up their mind, and we wind up driving home irritable and cranky.” Ah, the joys of Christmas. Can anybody relate to this?

And those are just little examples of what we are capable of when God is not with us. Obviously the potential for damage goes much deeper. I’ve always been haunted by this story: Arthur Miller is one of the men who married Marilyn Monroe. And he said that during the filming of one of her movies, he watched her descend into a deep depression. And one evening, after they convinced a doctor to give her another shot so she could sleep, Arthur Miller stood there, watching her sleep. And here’s what he wrote: “What if she were to wake up and I were able to say, ‘God loves you, darling,’ and she were able to believe it! How I wished that I still had my religion, and that she had hers.” Isn’t that profoundly sad? When we don’t have God with us, life can become frighteningly lonely and empty.

On the other hand, when God is with us, we are capable of amazing things: Forgiveness and generosity and sobriety and acts of kindness that change people’s lives—I see it all the time. So here’s my point: Emmanuel isn’t just something you talk about at Christmas; it’s the key to life.

So in this series, we’re tracing that theme of Emmanuel from the Garden of Eden…to the Temple of Jerusalem…to the Stable of Bethlehem. Last week, Pastor Ted took us to the Garden—the very beginning of humanity. And God was with them! They had Emmanuel! But they also had free will. And they used their free will to push God away. They ate the forbidden fruit, and immediately they became guarded; they started accusing each other—“You made me do this!” So the moment they lost Emmanuel, you could see their lives starting to unravel, just like ours do.

So in the Garden, Emmanuel was lost. And that’s where I want to continue the story today. Because the good news is: God was not happy with that situation. So he started working to re-establish his connection with humankind. And as the story unfolds, the way that God provided was called The Temple. He gave them this special building; he gave them a set of rituals to carry out at there. Which was a good thing. But anytime you have rituals, there’s always a danger.

You might have heard the story of the woman who was preparing a turkey for Christmas dinner. And before she put it in the oven, she took out a big knife and she cut it in half. Her husband was watching, and he said, “Why do you always cut the turkey in half?” And she said, “I’m not sure. That’s what my mother always did, so I’ve always done it.” Later, the in-laws showed up and the woman asked her mother, “Why did you always cut the turkey in half before cooking it?” Her mother said, “I don’t really know. That’s what your grandmother always did.” So they found Grandma: “Grandma, why did you always cut the turkey in half before cooking it?” And she said, “Oh—in our first home, the oven was tiny and we could never fit a whole turkey, so we had to cut it in half first.” See, here’s the danger with rituals: we have a habit of remaining loyal to the ritual long after the meaning has been lost. So we keep doing it, but we have no idea why.

And that’s the danger with any ritual—including the ritual of the temple, and including the rituals and traditions of Christmas. So today we’re going to talk about how to avoid that danger, which will make our Christmas so much better.

Let’s look at today’s Scripture—we’re in Hebrews chapter nine, the first ten verses. This is talking all about the Temple. Let’s hear God’s word…

1 Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. 2 A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand and the table with its consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place. 3 Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, 4 which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. 5 Above the ark were the cherubim of the Glory, overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.

6 When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. 7 But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. 8 The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning.

So, first: The Purpose of the Temple. In the book of Exodus, God gives instructions to build this portable structure, called the Tabernacle, which, when they got into their homeland, would become a permanent structure called the Temple. Here’s a model of what the temple looked like. Huge structure, with a big outer courtyard, and then an inner place called the Holy Place, where the priests would go to offer sacrifices. And then at the very center separated by this thick curtain, was The Most Holy Place. Only one person would ever go into the Most Holy Place. You know who it was? The Jewish High Priest. And he would only go in one day per year. You know what day it was? Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement.

If you go to Jerusalem today there is no temple. But when you read the writings of people who saw it with their own eyes, they say it was awesome. One way you can approach Jerusalem is to come down the Mount of Olives, and you come around a curve in the road, and suddenly you see the city spread out in front of you. It’s beautiful now, but when the temple was standing they say it was breathtaking. When you have visitors from out of town, what are the places you are proud to show them? Downtown Lincoln Park? The Pompton Queen? What are we proud to show people? The Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Freedom Tower. Right? Those are kind of our landmarks. For a person living in Israel back then, the thing they were most proud of, by far, was their temple. It was spectacular.

But the thing that made the Temple the most special was not its beauty; it was what happened there. Back in the book of Exodus, when they finally finished building the tabernacle, listen to what happened—this is Exodus 40:34…Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. There was actually a visible manifestation of the presence of God that filled the tabernacle—like a brilliant, glowing cloud. God himself showed up! So every time a priest went into that Most Holy Place, behind that curtain, he actually encountered God. The God who had banished mankind from the Garden of Eden now welcomed the priest, as the representative of the people, back into his presence. Contact was re-established. Wow.

So why did God allow that? Well, Let’s go back to the Garden of Eden for a minute. Right after the first humans rejected God, God did something very mysterious—look at Genesis 3:23.... 23 So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. So the way back into God’s presence was guarded by this flaming sword—which symbolized the fact that God takes sin so seriously, that in order to forgive it, someone needs to go under the sword. And that might sound harsh to you, but when you’ve been the victim of sin—if you were the victim of sexual assault or financial fraud or racial discrimination—you realize that justice is a good thing. You don’t want sin to just be forgotten. And God says sin is so serious, that to deal with it, there needs to be shedding of blood. So look at Hebrews 9:7… But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and – listen - never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. So the priest would bring a sacrificial animal, the animal would go under the sword and shed its blood, and for another year the people of Israel were allowed back into the presence of God.

Is everybody with me? So that was the purpose of the Temple. In the Garden of Eden, Emmanuel was lost. And through the Temple, they were able to get it back. And for centuries, that’s how Jewish religious life worked. And they all lived happily ever after—right? Well, not really.

Let’s talk about The Problem with the Temple. The reason I chose our main passage in Hebrews is because it shows how this good thing started to go wrong. And I realize we’ve never experienced the Temple. But the Temple represents any organized religious system that has rituals. And any time you have an organized religious system, some unfortunate things tend to happen. So I’m going to give you five problems with the Temple. See if you recognize any of these in your own experience of religion.

First, Self-Doubt. Look at Hebrews 9:9…This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. So imagine yourself as a faithful Israelite; you bring your sacrificial animal to the temple and confess your sin. And you walk away. And on the way home, you see a beautiful house, and you think, “Man, I wish I had that house.” And then it dawns on you, “Oh no—I just broke the 10th commandment—Thou shall not covet.” And your conscience nags you. And then you get back home, and your mother says, “Why haven’t you taken out the garbage yet?” And you say, “Oh mom, give me a break!” And you realize, “I just broke the 5th commandment!—I didn’t honor my mother.” So if you had a sensitive conscience, you would always have this uneasy feeling that you need to go and make another sacrifice. It could get obsessive. Religions tends to be like that. It haunts us with self-doubt.

Second problem: Superiority. So this is the other side of the same coin. In a system that’s based on how well I perform my religious duties, some people are going to feel superior because they believe they’re performing really well. Jesus told the story of a Pharisee and a tax collector who came into the

Temple one day. Pharisees were famous for being holy, and tax collectors were known for their sinfulness. And it says the Pharisee stood up and prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I receive…” In a religious system, it’s easy to slip into superiority.

Third problem: Superficiality. In other words, it’s surface-y. Look at Hebrews 9, verse 10: They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings—external regulations… What kind of regulations were they? External! They just dealt with the surface. It was like realizing you have internal bleeding, and putting a Band-Aid on. Might help for a little bit, but man, you need surgery!

This surface approach was a real problem for the religious leaders of Israel. Look what Jesus says to them in Matthew 23:25: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” They said the right things, they showed up at the Temple at the right times, but their hearts were unchanged.

Okay—the fourth problem with the Temple was Segregation. Hebrews 9:7 says But only the high priest entered the inner room… He was the only one allowed in. So there was this segregation between the clergy and the laity. When my family and I were living in Eastern Europe, I was invited to preach in a Baptist church. And I actually found a picture online of the church. So when it was time to preach, do you see those stairs, rising up about 12 feet in the air? I had to climb up those steps and preach to all the people down below. It was a bizarre experience, and I felt completely disconnected from the people. Do any of you come from a formal church background? Very traditional—liturgical? You’ve seen all kinds of things like this, right? Special seats and robes and hats for the pastors and priests. So there’s this definite segregation between the clergy and the regular people. Religious systems tend to produce that, and it’s a dangerous thing.

One more problem with the Temple and organized religious systems is Separation. As in, separation from God. So, in a sense, the people coming to the Temple did have Emmanuel, right? I mean, Old Testament believers could walk with God, and have a relationship with God. But sort of indirectly, right? Because look at Hebrews 9:8… The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning. In other words, the only ones who could go directly into God’s presence were the priests—especially the High Priest. Which means that everybody else was kept a step or two removed. And I know this was the experience of many of you: you showed up Sunday after Sunday, you went through the motions, and you walked out feeling no sense of Emmanuel. It was just ritual. But you kept doing the rituals, just like they kept cutting the turkey in half, because that’s just what you do.

If you can relate to any of those problems—if you’ve ever been disappointed by religion or left feeling empty by religion—that’s how you’re supposed to feel. That’s how the temple was supposed to make people feel: like, it’s okay, but there must be something better. And there is.

Point number three: The Promise of the Temple. Look what the writer of Hebrews says about the whole temple system—this is Hebrews 9:10… They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings—external regulations applying until the time of the new order. See, this whole system was never meant to be permanent. It was sort of a placeholder, until the “new order” showed up. Something better was coming.

And 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem, that “something better” showed up. And I don’t know have ever noticed this, but when the New Testament describes the birth of Jesus and the life of Jesus, there are so many connections to the Temple!

Listen to how Christ’s arrival is described in the Gospel of John: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. That phrase “made his dwelling” is the Greek word for “tabernacle.” It literally says Jesus showed up and “tabernacled” among us. Later on, Jesus was standing in the Jerusalem temple and he said, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up again in three days.” Everybody thought, “What are you talking about?” And then it says, “But the temple he was talking about was his body.” In Matthew 12:6, Jesus said, “I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.” Hmm. A lot of Temple talk. And here’s why: the thing the temple was trying to do, which was to connect people with God, Jesus came to do that same thing…only better. To borrow a phrase from Tim Keller, Jesus was the “true and better temple.” So now, if we want to encounter God, we don’t have to go to a special building…we just have to go to Jesus. Wow.

But the most important connection between Jesus and the Temple happened at the end of his life. You remember the Most Holy Place in the Temple—where God’s presence dwelled? It was protected by a veil—this thick, ornate curtain, that basically said, “Keep out.” Because sinful people couldn’t come into the presence of a holy God. And everyone knew that if anyone except the High Priest dared to go past that curtain, they would be toast. And then Jesus went to the cross, and something happened. It’s one of the most awesome things in the Bible. The moment Jesus died, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Not from bottom to top—which would imply that people did it—but from top to bottom—which means God did it, in response to the death of Christ. Because the thing that had always separated us—our sin—had been fully absorbed by Jesus on the cross…so there was no more need for the barrier. At the cross, Jesus flung the door wide open.

Or, think about it this way: because of our sin, all of us deserve to be banished from the Garden—banished from God’s presence. The way back to God was blocked off. But on the cross, Jesus went under the sword for us, so the way to God has been opened. Isn’t that awesome? Man, don’t miss the beauty of the gospel message, and how the whole Bible fits together! Jesus is the perfect Temple; he is the final sacrifice; he is the fulfillment of God’s promises; he is the reality that all the shadows and signs were pointing to. You might not have anything else in this world—2023 might have been a year of tears and loss—but if you have Jesus, you have God with us. And at the end of the day, that’s all you really need.

Remember all the problems the temple caused? Religion can cause all kinds of ugly things. But when we replace our religious systems with Jesus, all those negative things get reversed:

Self-doubt turns into confidence. Because you realize your standing with God isn’t based on your performance; it’s based on Christ. So you don’t have to constantly doubt and feel guilty. What a relief! This Christmas, let Emmanuel give you confidence.

Superiority turns into humility. Because you realize the only reason you stand before God is the grace of Christ. That keeps you grounded, and it prevents arguments on the highway and on the Christmas tree lot. This Christmas, let Emmanuel give you humility.

Superficiality turns into integrity. Because you realize it’s not about outward things like attending services or taking part in rituals and saying the right words; it’s about an actual relationship with Jesus—trusting him and following in his steps. This Christmas, let Emmanuel give you integrity.

Segregation turns into equality. Because people like me are reminded that just because I climbed up a few steps to get on this stage, it doesn’t give me some special status in God’s eyes. And that creates a church culture where everyone is valued and everyone’s voice is heard. This Christmas, let Emmanuel give you equality.

And finally, our separation from God turns into intimacy with God. Because of Jesus, we don’t have to wait outside while a priest goes and talks to God for us. We get to come boldly before the throne of grace any time we want. This Christmas, let Emmanuel give you intimacy with God.

Here’s the last thing I want to say: I don’t think there’s another time of year that has more rituals and traditions associated with it. Right? Exchanging gifts. Decorating the house. Lighting candles. And they’re beautiful traditions! But if we’re not careful we’ll find ourselves doing the rituals without really thinking about why. And if we have kids, we’ll teach our kids the traditions without really emphasizing what they mean. And after a few generations, all we’ll have left are the traditions. And Christmas will become a secular holiday, with no sense of Emmanuel, God with us. Let’s not let that happen.

This Christmas, when you’re putting the star on top of your Christmas tree, remember the reason why: Magi from the east saw a strange star appear in the sky, and they followed it all the way to the child Jesus. They knew all about astrology and magic, but this was different. And they bowed down and worshiped Emmanuel. So remind yourself and the people around you: this isn’t just a star; this leads us to Jesus!

This Christmas, when you’re giving gifts, remember the reason why: those wise men bowed down and offered Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They were so overwhelmed by God’s generosity to them, and they responded with their own generosity. So as you give gifts this year, remind everybody: we’re giving because God first gave to us!

And this Christmas, as you light candles in your home or at a Christmas Eve service, or as you decorate your house with lights, remember the reason why: the Bible says when Jesus arrived, he was a light shining in the darkness. You know, this is such a dark time of year, and every light we shine represents the light of Christ shining in this dark world. Let’s remind everyone what those lights mean.

This Christmas season, I hope you have a lot of fun with all the rituals and traditions. But much more importantly, I hope those traditions fill you with amazement that God is with us.

(Lauren comes up and leads in first verse of “O Come…”)