Sermon: Where God Chooses to Dwell
The 2nd and last Jewish temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70 CE, 40 years, or approximately one generation, after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, in response to a Jewish revolt against the Roman empire. The destruction of the temple created an existential crisis for the Jewish people. The temple was the center of their faith, the locus of their religious practices, and the most important location for the Jewish people as a whole. You see, the temple was more than a building. It was the one and only place where sacrifices could be offered, the only place where the people could make offerings of thanksgiving and sacrifices for sin. Therefore, it was the only place where the Jewish people could appease God’s wrath and earn forgiveness and be made right with God. Until the destruction of the temple, the Jewish faith relied on the daily sacrifices to God made by the priests on behalf of the people.
And why? Why could these sacred rituals only be practiced in the temple? Because the temple was understood to be God’s dwelling place—the place where God had chosen to reside among God’s people—more precisely, in the innermost sanctum of the temple, known as the Holy of Holies. In one terrible act of Roman retribution, the people of Israel lost their most sacred building, the residence in which God had promised to dwell among them.
So, the question on every Jew’s mind, and every Jew’s lips was, “Where is God now? Where and how do we worship God, now that the temple is no more?” According to my preaching professor, Dr. Lewis, the Gospels (and the Book of Acts) were all written with this question in mind—"Where is God, if not in the Jerusalem temple?”—and they were intended, in whole or in part, as a response to that question for the followers of Jesus, both then and today.
However, the God of Israel, who is also the God of Christianity, the one and only Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of the cosmos, did not always reside in a temple, nor was God, the creator of all that was, is now and ever shall be, tied to a particular building or geographic location. But the people of Israel seem to have become accustomed to the idea that God stayed in one place. Had they forgotten that God went into Egypt with Moses to rescue them from slavery in Egypt? Had they forgotten that God had led them out of Egypt in/as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of cloud by night? Upon receiving the 10 Commandments at Sinai, they constructed a tabernacle, as a transportable temple where God would come and hold audience with Moses. And then they built the Ark of the Covenant, and constructed it with the cherubim on its lid known as the Mercy Seat, the throne upon which God would meet the people and travel with them as they wandered for 40 years in the desert. In this way, they believed God could even be carried into battle with them in the Promised Land.
When David wanted to construct house for God, a permanent temple that could not move or be transported from place to place, God said “No.” But God eventually allowed David’s son, Solomon, to construct a lavish temple. Solomon understood that God could not dwell solely there, because God cannot be contained. In 2 Chron 2:6, Solomon asks,
“But who is able to build [God] a house, since heaven, even highest heaven, cannot contain him? Who am I to build a house for [God], except as a place to make offerings before him?”
The temple Solomon built was to be a house, not for God, but for God’s name, and a place to keep the Ark of the Covenant. It was a place for the Israelites to worship, to offer sacrifice and prayers. It was a place where the people could stand in the sight of God, and where God could, if God so chose, meet them upon the Mercy Seat on the Ark. When Solomon had finished the temple and made offerings there, he prayed that God would always keep watch over the people of Israel, listen to their prayers and grant them forgiveness, then God appeared to Solomon.
“The LORD said to him, “I have heard your prayer and your plea, which you made before me; I have consecrated this house that you have built, and put my name there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time.” (1 Kings 9:3)
But this, first temple, was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the Ark of the Covenant was also lost or destroyed, and the people of Israel were taken into exile in Babylon. However, according to the prophet Ezekiel, God did not remain in the Temple or its ruins, nor did God abandon Israel. Ezekiel had a vision of God seated on a gigantic, throne-like, wheeled contraption that moved through the air under the power of angels, by which God left the temple and went along with God’s exiled people into Babylon, even as the temple was being destroyed. God remained there, in Babylon with them, until they were released from exile to return and build a new temple, under the guidance of the Persian empire in 536 BCE. Upon returning from exile, Ezekiel had another vision of God in this wheeled, angel powered throne returning to Israel and take up residence in the new temple, which was completed around 516 BCE. This vision was meant, as was the first, to comfort the people by assuring them that God was still with them, and would not abandon them.
But somehow, in the 5 centuries that followed, the people of Israel had become accustomed to thinking of the temple, of the Holy of Holies at the center of the temple, as the place where God actually resided, at all times. So, who were they now? Where was God, now that the temple was gone?
According to the Gospels, God was present in the person of Jesus, incarnate in the very flesh and blood and bone of Jesus. God confirms this in the accounts of Jesus’ baptism. But that’s not the whole story. The scriptures make it abundantly clear that God loves human beings, and desires a personal relationship with each and every one of us. I think God designed us specifically for relationship, with each other, with the rest of creation, and most importantly, for relationship with God. We long for God. We need God. Sometimes I think, maybe there really is a God-shaped hole in each of us that can only be filled by the Holy Spirit. I truly believe that this was the plan all along. In a way, Jesus was the perfect prototype—the perfect Temple in which God was pleased to dwell.
The truth is, God is now present in us, in all the people that make up the world-wide church. In baptism, the Holy Spirit takes up residence within each of us. God has chosen to dwell, not within structures of wood or stone or brick and mortar, but within flawed and fragile temples of human flesh and bone. God loves human beings and wants so much to be in relationship with us, that God has decided to take up residence, not just with or alongside us, but within us—to have the most intimate relationship possible with each one of us.
God is the source of strength and resilience within us. Dwelling within us gives God direct access to our hearts, on which God promised to engrave God’s laws of love, so that we can more easily follow them, and recognize them as ways of demonstrating love for one another. Having the Holy Spirit dwelling within us increases the likelihood that we can be altered, refurbished, transformed into better versions of ourselves—especially if we give God permission to remodel our hearts and minds, to rearrange our priorities, to enlarge our hearts and create more room for us to grow and expand our capacity to love and forgive, to increase our generosity, to broaden our narrow ways of thinking and being, to improve our ability to welcome and honor diversity, to open us up to the limitless possibilities that exist when we allow God to take the helm and guide us through this life and into the next.
But lest we start thinking that only we Christians have been chosen to serve as habitats for the Divine Presence, we must remember that the book of Acts makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of entering into people who have not received a Christian baptism through water and the word. The Holy Spirit is free to move in and take up residence in anyone, anywhere, at any time. In Acts 10, the Holy Spirit enters a Gentile in the Roman army along with all his family and friends, after which Peter decides they should all be baptized with water, because it was clear that God had already baptized them with the Holy Spirit, just exactly as God had baptized the Apostles at Pentecost.
God desires to dwell in and among all people, everywhere, because God creates us all, loves us all, and desires to transform and empower us all for the sake of all creation. In other words, God inhabits us in order to rehabilitate us, one by one, so that all of creation can be redeemed, restored, revived and renewed as well. This is good news! God didn’t abandon Israel when the temple was destroyed. God never abandons God’s children, not even when we abandon God. On the contrary, God took this opportunity to dwell with them—and everyone else—just in a much more personal and intimate way—a way they never expected, and weren’t prepared to recognize or understand. God took this opportunity to expand God’s reach beyond the confines of the temple, beyond the boundaries of Israel, beyond all imagination, to include all of human kind, in order to personally re-image and reinstate us all, so that we can fulfill our intended purpose. I can’t think of any better news than this. Can you?