Do you recognise the iconic old Wembley Stadium? This building was a national treasure but it was closed in 2000 for the construction of a new stadium which opened in March 2007. In our Scripture reading today, in verses 17 to 22 Jesus also talks about the replacement of an old iconic building with something radically new, something that his disciples could not understand at the time because it was such a profoundly new idea.
This is a picture of the Temple which for the Jewish people was the centre of the nation. King Solomon had built the original temple as a home for the dwelling place of God. God promised at the time to dwell there for a long as worship was pure but 400 years later the prophet Ezekiel describes seeing the glory of God leaving the temple. This occurs when the Jewish people are sent into captivity because they no longer worshiped God in purity. By the time of Jesus King Herod was building this wonderful new temple. It was supposed to be the centre of worship to God, it was supposed to be the place of pure worship.
It was the place Jews went to worship God to be in his presence, the most important place in the land.
That’s the back story to our gospel reading and John sets out two important and linked ideas.
- Jesus Cleaning of the temple which shows that once again it is no longer a place of pure worship. It was no longer fit for purpose a bit like the old Wembley Stadium because of the seller’s unscrupulous practices which made it unclean.
- Then in verses 18-22, where Jesus talks about destroying this temple i.e. his body and rebuilding it, and in this story John points to the new temple. Instead it’s not a building! This new temple is a completely new idea because it’s a person!
Jesus is to be the new focus of pure worship to God. Jesus and the Father enjoy a unique mutual indwelling and therefore the body of Jesus uniquely manifests the Father. Once God dwelt in the Holy of Holies within the Temple but now John wants us to know that God dwells uniquely in Jesus. Jesus is the place where God dwells in purity and holiness, he replaces the old, corrupt place and system of worship with his incorruptible self. To the Jews listening at the time, this was a radical new idea, that God would be found dwelling in a human instead of the Temple.
However, more radical still is the idea that God now dwells in each and every believer of Jesus Christ. St Peter tells us after Pentecost in Acts 2: 38 that for those who repent and are baptised in the name of Jesus our sins are forgiven and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit dwells in believers God’s presence dwells within us. No longer do worshippers of God have to go to a building to find his presence to worship him in purity, instead God dwells within each of us. Which means that no matter where we are, at home, in the garden, in the garage, walking in the park we carry the presence of God and can worship him there in our prayer times, read the Bible or even putting on a CD of hymns and singing at home.
While we faithfully follow God his presence dwells within us making us carriers of God wherever we go.
I think this realisation is especially important for us today because we are exiled from our buildings but as the last few months on Zoom have proved, we can still worship God. Not in the same cherished way but here we are on Zoom, still worshiping God. It has been good for us to learn again, as the Jews did when John wrote this that a building no longer contains the presence of God in its own right. Instead our buildings contain the presence of God because we and countless others over the centuries have worshiped God with sincere hearts in the building. We heard from the prophet Ezekiel earlier when he saw God’s presence leave the Temple but later on (chapter 36:26) he quotes God as saying,
God desires pure worship which means we come to God with sincerity, it doesn’t mean we have to be sinless, just honest about our failings, and when we do we worship whole-heartedly, not out of habit. In our Gospel passage today, Jesus foretold how he would replace the temple as the dwelling place of God, it was a radically new idea, that God would dwell in people instead of a building and we today live in this reality.
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