[Note: Every week, I've been handing out stones and then asking them to put their stone at the foot of the cross at the end of the sermon. This week, I asked them to keep their stone to remind them of what the other stones represent. So, at the start of this sermon, point to the pile of stones at the foot of the cross.]
Do you remember what the first stone that we laid at the foot of the cross represented? It represented a piece of the stone tablets on which God wrote the Ten Commandments with His finger … signifying His power and the eternal nature of His Law. While Moses was with God, receiving the Law, God also instructed Moses to build an ark to put the stone tablets in. It was a box made of acacia wood. God instructed Moses to put rings on the sides of the Ark so that poles could be inserted through them and used to lift the box and carry it with them. Here is a little but important detail. God tells Moses that the poles must “remain in the rings of the ark; they shall not be taken from it” (Exodus 25:15). Why is that important? Because the LORD wanted them to be ready to move any time at His command. Leaving the poles in the rings also signified that they had not reached their permanent new home yet.
God then instructed them to construct what He called a “mercy seat” of pure gold with two angels of gold at either end of the mercy seat. “There I will meet you,” says God, “and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the covenant, I will deliver to you all my commands for the Israelites” (Exodus 25:22). Again, it’s important that you don’t miss what God is doing here. Before this, Moses had to go to God to talk to God and receive God’s commands. God had the ark built … a holy place … so that He could come and be with the Israelites … hence the name, “Tent of Meeting” … the place where God could be with His people and the people could come into God’s presence. The Bible then foreshadows what would become the model or standard for Temple worship when they finally do reach the Promised Land and set up a permanent home and build a nation.
“Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise and stand, each of them, at the entrance of their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent” (Exodus 33:8) … just as the people would stand in the Temple and watch as the priest went before the Ark in the Holy of Holies. “When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses” … which is exactly what Zechariah was doing when the angel appeared before him and told him that his wife, Elizabeth, would give birth to the prophet, John, who would prepare the people for the coming of God’s long-awaited Messiah, Jesus.
The Bible says that on the day that the tabernacle was completed, the cloud that had protected them from the Egyptian army, the cloud that was leading them through the wilderness, the cloud which was the Presence of God, “covered the tabernacle, the tent of the covenant, and from evening until morning it was over the tabernacle, having the appearance of fire” (Numbers 9:15). That must have been a sight, amen? And I want you to close your eyes and picture it … and then I want you to hold on to that image.
When God first met with His people on Mount Sinai and made a covenant with them, how did He appear? The Bible says “there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled. … Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the LORD had descended upon it in fire” (Exodus 19:16, 18). The image of God’s Presence descending on Mount Sinai is the same as God’s image descending on the Ark of the Covenant … again, signifying the place where God could speak to the people and the people could be in His Presence … to worship Him and to hear Him speak … the Tent of Meeting replacing the mountain of meeting … God coming down from the mountain top to be closer to His people. God going from being separated from the people by a mountain to an ark surrounded by curtains to being separated from the people by a special curtain in the Temple.
“When all the people saw the pillar of the cloud standing at the entrance of the tent,” says the Bible, “all the people would rise and bow down, all of them, at the entrance of their tent. Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then he would return to the camp” (Exodus 33:10-11). “It was always so,” the Bible reports, “… the cloud covered [the Ark] by day and the appearance of fire by night. Whenever the cloud lifted from over the tent, then the Israelites would set out; and in the place where the cloud settled down, there the Israelites would camp. … Whether it was two days, or a month, or a longer time, that the cloud continued over the tabernacle, resting upon it, the Israelites would remain in camp and would not set out; but when it lifted they would set out. At the command of the LORD they would camp, and at the command of the LORD they would set out. They kept the charge of the LORD, at the command of the LORD by Moses” (Numbers 9:16-17, 22-23).
Do you remember what the second stone in our pile up here represents? It represents the time when the Presence of the LORD went before the Israelites and parted the Jordan River so that they could enter the Promised Land on dry ground … and the LORD continued to travel with them and command them until the land that He had promised them was conquered. Even then, the Israelites continued to take the Ark with them into battle to command them and to inspire them with His Presence. At one point, the unthinkable happened: their enemy, the Philistines, captured the Ark of the Covenant and took it back to their capital, Ashod, and put it in their temple dedicated to their god, Dagon. We can hardly imagine the horror and despair that that caused the people of Israel. When the High Priest heard the news, he fell backwards off his seat, broke his neck, and died.
It didn’t take long for the Philistines to realize that taking the Ark back to their capital was a rather bad idea. The Bible says that “hand of the LORD was heavy upon the people of Ashdod, and He terrified and struck them with tumors, both in Ashdod and in its territory” (1st Numbers 9:16-17, 22-23) … and they were smart enough to return it.
After all the struggles of establishing Israel as a nation, the people of Israel experienced what the Bible called a period of “rest.” It was at this point that God, through His prophet Nathan, commanded David to build Him a Temple. “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent” (2nd Samuel 7:2). Like the Ark, God gave David very explicit directions on how the Temple was to be built. I’m not sure if you’ve ever noticed this but the Temple was built to house the Ark. Remember the poles used to carry the Ark? They were left in the rings on the side of the Ark so that when cloud over the Ark moved, the people moved and they carried the Ark with them … before them. Now the Ark is to have a home, a permanent home now that the Israelites have a permanent home. God had fulfilled His promise to give them a home and make them a great nation. They no longer have to wander about because they have arrived and the poles are no longer needed.
Here is the thing … God gave David the command to build a Temple to house the Ark, and He gave David the instructions on how to build it, but He also told David that he wouldn’t be the one to build it. “You shall not build a house for my name,” said God, “for you are a warrior and have shed blood. … It is your son Solomon who shall build my house and my courts” (1st Chronicles28:3, 6).
The Temple was built on Mount Moriah … the site where Abraham brought his son, Isaac, to sacrifice him as the LORD had commanded him to do. Solomon spared no expense to build a house for the Ark of the Lord and the final result was awesome. He built a magnificent house … a palace … fit for a magnificent King … a god … Israel’s God … our God. It took tens of thousands of skilled craftsmen and laborers seven years to build it. The materials were gathered from far and wide and at great expense. The stones were cut and shaped in quarries, hauled to the Temple site, and fitted into place so that there would be no hammering or chiseling to disturb the Temple site … think about that. I’ve been to the Western Wall and those stones were huge. They had to be measured, cut, hauled to the site, and fit perfectly into place.
According to the Bible, the inside ceiling was 180 feet long, 90 feet wide, and 50 feet high. The highest point on the Temple was 207 feet … or about 20 stories … tall. The Temple was adorned with precious stones. The naïve or porch on the front of the Temple was made of cypress and decorated with palm branches and chains made of gold. The beams, the thresholds, the walls and the doors of the Temple where lined with gold and Solomon had angels carved on the walls. If you want to know just how magnificent the First Temple was, I suggest that you take some time today … this week … to read the detailed description in 2nd Chronicles 3 and 4. I would have loved to have seen it too, wouldn’t you?
Remember the image of God’s Presence that we have so far. He descended on to Mount Sinai in a dark cloud filled with thunder and lighting. He then came off the mountain and traveled before the Israelites in a cloud of fire. When He commanded them to build an Ark, His Presence settled on the Ark. Now His Presence is about to descend upon the Temple. When it came time to dedicate the Temple, all the leaders and all the people gathered and watched as the priests and the Levites carried the ark and everything in the Tent of Meeting into the Temple. The Bible says that they sacrificed “so many sheep and oxen that they could not be numbered or counted” (2nd Chronicles 5:6). The Bible also makes the point that the poles were removed and stayed in the Holy of Holies with the Ark of the Covenant.
When the priests and Levities came out of the Temple the whole nation burst into song and celebration. Again, I wish I could have been there to see that … especially to see what happened next. God’s Presence, appearing as … or wrapped in … a cloud, descended and filled the House of the Lord “so that the priests could not stand to minister … for the glory of the LORD filled the House of God” (2nd Chronicles 5:14). During his prayer of dedication, Solomon asked: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even Heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built!” (1st Kings 8:27).
This was the view that the Israelites had of the Temple. It was the House of the LORD … it was the place of meeting. It was where the people gathered to worship God, to sacrifice and receive pardon for their sins. It was the place where God spoke and commanded His people through His priests. It was the most holy place on the earth and it was the heart and center of the nation and people of Israel … for the next 410 years anyways.
After Solomon’s death, the 10 northern tribes of Israel refused to acknowledge Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, as king and decided to form their own kingdom with their own king … keeping the name of Israel. The kings of both Israel and Judea practiced idolatry and trusted the fate of their kingdoms more to politics than they did to God … and the two nations suffered dearly for it. God sent prophets to warn them but the leaders of both kingdoms refused to listen or change their ways.
In 555 bc, the Assyrian army swept into Israel and destroyed the capital city of Samaria. Thousands of Israelites were carried away as slaves and dispersed throughout the distant provinces of Assyria … where they disappeared and remain unaccounted for even to this day. The Assyrians then re-populated the conquered region of the northern kingdom with exiles from the other regions that they had conquered … who became known as Samaritans or Kuttim. Now you know a little bit about why there was so much animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews.
The southern kingdom of Judah was spared and lasted for another 150 years. As with most great empires, the Assyrians conquered more than they could handle. Over time, their ability to maintain their hold over their empire began to dwindle. While they were on the descent, Egypt was on the ascent but they weren’t powerful enough to stand against the Babylonians. Judah was caught between two rising superpowers … Egypt and Babylon … and one declining superpower … Assyria. Rather than listening to God’s prophet, Jeremiah, the Judean king, Jehoiakim, chose to form an alliance with Egypt rather than put the fate of the nation in the hands of God … and, again, the people of God paid dearly. The Egyptians forged their own deal with Babylon, which left Judea weak and exposed and left them with no other choice but to form an alliance with King Nebuchadnezzar and become a vassal state of Babylon. King Jehoiakim died during the first siege and was replaced by his son, Jehoiachin, who surrendered Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar. Jehoiachin, the royal family, and some of the Judean nobility … most notably Daniel and his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah … along with some select skilled craftsman and trained warriors … were led off as captives. Ordinary people were allowed to stay and work the land … marrying the exiles that the Babylonians brought in from other conquered regions … also accounting for the animosity between Samaritans and Jews. The city and Temple were spared but the Babylonians looted the royal house and the Temple and took what they stole back to Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar makes Jehoiachin’s uncle, Zedekiah, a puppet king who was allowed to rule so long as he was loyal to Nebuchadnezzar and paid heavy taxes … something that galled Zedekiah as you can imagine … having to pay taxes to support your oppressor. Sounds familiar. In Jesus’ day, the Jews had to pay heavy taxes to support their oppressor. After nine years of this, Zedekiah had had enough and rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem. This time he not only destroed the city of Jerusalem but the Temple as well.
Again, the heart of the people was devastated. The prophet Ezekiel warned them of the Temple’s coming destruction, describing how he saw the Spirit of the Lord, which had descended during the dedication of the Temple, ascend back into Heaven. After 18 months, the Babylonians broke through the walls of Jerusalem, they captured and killed Zedekiah’s sons in front of him, blinded him, and led him away in chains. He was the last of the House of David to sit on the throne in Jerusalem. A governor was left in charge but when he was assassinated, those remaining in the land fled to Egypt, leaving Judah desolate and empty and the city and Temple in literal ruins. Everything of value was carried off as loot by the Babylonian soldiers.
Again we see Judah and the People of God getting swept up in the power play between great and powerful nations. Babylon’s reign over Judah lasted only 50 years before Cyrus, the King of Persia drove out the Babylonians and gave Judah and the city of Jerusalem back to the Israelites. Cyrus not only authorized the Jews to rebuild their Temple but contributed money from his own treasury and from the treasury of some of Persia’s other vassal states as well. In return he simply asked that the Jews pray to their God for the preservation of the king and his family and that the kingdom of Persia may continue … which it did until the Romans showed up a few hundred years later.
The second Temple had none of the splendor and glory of the first Temple. When the exiles returned, Jerusalem had no wall to protect it and the Temple was nothing but a pile of rubble. Under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, the second Temple was completed in 349 bc and Judah was once again a vibrant and secure nation … until the Romans showed up around 146 bc and Judea was once again a vassal state of yet another superpower.
In 40 bc, the Roman General Marc Antony appointed Herod the First … or Herod the Great … as “ethnarch” or the equivalent of a puppet king over the Jews … which the Jews made very clear that they weren’t very happy about. A passionate lover of architecture and building, Herod rebuilt the Temple … partly to placate the Jews and partly to feed his enormous ego. “He had adorned many cities and had erected many heathen temples; and it was not fitting that the temple of his capital should fall beneath these in magnificence. The Jews were loathed to have their Temple pulled down, fearing lest it might not be rebuilt. To demonstrate his good faith, Herod accumulated the materials for the new building before the old one was taken down. The new Temple was rebuilt as rapidly as possible, being finished in a year and a half, although work was in progress on the out-buildings and courts for eighty years (Barton, G.A. Jewishencyclopedia.com). The completed Temple was, in the words of the Jewish historian Josephus “spectacular.” The Second Temple, or Herod’s Temple as it came to be called, was made of white marble and covered with gold plates. According to Josephus, the Second Temple “reflected so fierce a blaze of fire that those who tried to look at it had to turn away, as if they had looked straight at the sun. To approaching strangers it appeared in the distance like a mountain covered with snow” (Chabad.org). This was the state of the Temple when Jesus and His Disciples journeyed into Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.
Passover is a celebration of the Jews’ liberation from their longest and most powerful oppressors … the Egyptians. Needless the say, the city was teeming with pilgrims and zealots anxious to find a leader or group who would free them from the yoke of Roman oppression … and, needless to say, the Romans were on high alert … ready to nip any potential riot or uprising in the bud.
As Jesus and His Disciples climbed the last hill and saw the glorious sight that Josephus described … the city of Jerusalem rising up on the other side of the Kidron valley, the Temple gleaming gold and white in the sun, Jesus stops and weeps. “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace!” Jesus laments. “But now they are hidden from your eyes. Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God” (Luke 19:41-44).
We might picture the whole city waving palms and greeting Jesus when He rode into the city. More likely, it was just His Disciples and His followers shouting “Hosanna!” and laying their coats on the ground, praising Him and announcing that the people’s long-awaited Messiah had arrived. The Pharisees, not wanting to draw too much attention from the Roman guards and the many Roman spies in the city, beg Jesus to order His Disciples to stop. “He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out’” (Luke 19:40).
Where is the first place that Jesus goes when He rides into town? His Father’s House … which is? The Temple. What He finds is appalling, and so He cleans house, amen? Driving out the sellers and money changers.
After teaching in the Temple one day, the conversation turned to the nearly completed Temple. Comments were made about how beautiful it was when Jesus repeated His prediction that the city and the Temple would be destroyed. “As for these things that you see,” says Jesus, “the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down. … When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not enter it; for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment of all that is written. Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people; they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled’” (Luke 21:6, 20-24).
Frightening words for a people who were familiar with the destruction of their land and people by superpowers and were currently under the thumb of yet another superpower. But Jesus’ tears and the concerns of the Pharisees who tried to silence them were justified. There were constant threats of revolt and uprising. One of the reasons for the unrest was the heavy tax burden that the Romans placed on the people … draining wealth and resources from the land and, as I mentioned earlier, being used to support the very army that was occupying and brutalizing them. Another source of the unrest had to do with the Temple itself. When the Roman Emperor Caligula came in to power in the year 39 a.d., he declared himself a god and ordered that statues of his image be placed in every house of worship within his realm … including the Temple. As you can imagine … that was a threat that didn’t sit well with the Jews. Caligula threatened to destroy their temple if they didn’t comply. Fortunately for them and unfortunately for Caligula, the Emperor was assassinated by members of his Praetorian guard before he could carry out his threat.
Another issue had to do with the Temple priests. Like Herod, who was appointed as “King of the Jews” by the Romans, the Romans also took it upon themselves to decided who would hold the position of High Priest. “As a result, it was often people who conspired with Rome that were appointed the High Priest role, thereby giving those who were trusted least by the Jewish people the highest position in the community” (Pelaia, A. learnreligions.com, March 18,2019). When Nero became emperor, he appointed Florus as governor of Judea. Florus convinced Nero to revoke the Jews’ status as citizens of the empire, which left the Jews unprotected should any non-Jewish citizens choose to harass them (Pelaia, ibid.) The straw that broke the camel’s back and set fire to this volatile mix was when it was discovered that Florus was stealing huge amounts of silver from the Temple treasury. A major riot broke out and the Jews were able to drive the Roman soldiers out of town … a short-lived victory. The Romans brought in a large force of heavily armed and highly trained professional soldiers against the insurgents in Galilee. Over 100,000 Jews were either killed or sold into slavery. The Romans then dug a massive trench bordered by high walls around the perimeter of Jerusalem to catch anyone who tried to escape. The ones they captured where nailed to crosses lining the tops of the trench wall (Pelaia, Ibid.).
In the summer of the year 70 C.E. the Romans succeeded in breaching the walls of Jerusalem and began ransacking the city. “On the ninth of the Jewish month of Av, Roman soldiers threw torches at the Temple and started an enormous fire. When the flames finally died out all that was left of the Second Temple was one outer wall from the western side of the Temple’s courtyard. This wall still stands in Jerusalem today and is known as the Western Wall” or Wailing Wall. That sad and horrible day is commemorated by the Jews with a fast day known as Tisha B’av (Pelaia, ibid).
Now you can understand how frightening it was for Jesus to say that the Temple was going to be destroy. Witnesses were brought forward at Jesus’ trial to testified that Jesus said that He would destroy the Temple in three days and rebuild it (Luke 26:61). When Jesus said this to His Disciples, the Apostle John explained that the Temple that Jesus was talking about was Himself.
Remember … God came down to Mount Sinai to enter into a covenant with His people. He then came down the mountain and led them in a cloud of fire. He met with the people at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. He dispensed justice and mercy from the Mercy Seat of the Ark. When the Ark was placed in the Temple, the priest stood before the curtain at the entrance of the Holy of Holies … only entering the Holy of Holies once a year to act as an emissary on behalf of the nation. The goal of Yom Kippur is the atonement of the nation’s sins and a call for the people to repent.
Jesus is Emmanuel … the Living God … who came down off of His Heavenly throne, stepped down off the mountain, stepped out of the Temple, and came to us. We no longer have to go to God … He has come to us and is always with us. The Temple curtain was torn in two when Jesus’ body was torn and bruised on the cross. We no longer need a priest to stand in our behalf. The cross is both a call to repentance and a symbol of our atonement.
I don’t want you to put the stone that you have in your hand today at the foot of the cross. I want you to keep it. Put it somewhere in your house or car or somewhere where you will see it on a regular basis so that it can remind yourself of the stones that you see here at the foot of the cross.
Stones that remind you of God’s eternal Law etched in stone by His powerful finger … the Law that only Jesus could keep perfectly.
To remind you of the stones that the Israelites piled up on the other side of the Jordan River when the entered the Promised Land … reminding us that Jesus goes before us through troubled waters.
To remind you that you have a heart of stone but that Jesus came to give you a new heart, a heart for Him alone.
To remind you of the stones that were never thrown at the woman caught in adultery … so that you, like her, can go as Jesus commanded and sin no more.
To remind you that Jesus is the cornerstone and foundation of your life.
And finally, to remind you that we no longer have to go to the Temple made of stone to worship God and be in God’s Presence but that He resides in the Temple of Your heart, amen?
