Mon - 11; Tues - 12.1-17; Wed - 12.18-44; Thurs - 13; Fri - 15:33-16:3
We have followed Jesus “along the way” to Jerusalem. We know that he is God in the flesh arrived as King. Now he is going to parade inro Jerusalem as king. His parade represents his teaching over the last few chapters. He doesn’t look like the king they were expecting. He arrives on a service animal. With his actions over the next handful of chapters the crowds will turn from shouting “Hosanna!” to “Crucify!” Jesus’s first action is to go into the temple. The temple provides the context for the next few chapters, and it is worth pausing to establish the importance of the temple in the life of Israel. Understanding its importance for them will help us understand its importance for us.
When you think of the temple, think of it as the location where heaven and earth come together. A thin space between the physical world and the spiritual world. The temple isn’t the temple unless the presence of God is there. God’s presence rests on the tabernacle (Exod 40:34-38) and then on the temple (2 Chron 7:1-3). God’s presence is what makes the temple more than a building. The Jewish understanding of creation is in the form of the temple. God’s presence was fully with Adam and Eve in Eden, and the temple and the Garden reflect one another. Adam and Eve rebelled against God, and they were removed from his presence. Israel continually rebelled against God and he removed his presence from the temple (Ezek 10). The expectation for the full return from exile was that God would return to his throne in the temple.
This basic outline of Ezekiel helps paint a picture of the temple (and should help us understand who we are called to be as the church). In Ezekiel, after he gets a message that the Jerusalem temple has been destroyed (Ezek 33), he has a series of visions about the future restored temple. He gets a virtual tour of the new temple in chapter 40-42, where he checks out the details, the rooms, and the furnishings. And it all ramps up to Ezek 43, where the glory of the Lord fills this new temple. One of my favorite images is in Ezekiel 47 where the river of the water of life flows from the temple and brings life to the dead sea. This is also the image found in the water of life flowing from the throne of God in Revelation 22. The church is the tree that produces fruit every month (Rev 22:2 – hear echoes of Jesus’s curse of the fig tree that didn’t bear fruit out of season). The final image of Revelation is that Jerusalem came down and God’s good creation was restored. There is no temple in the city because God’s presence is the reality now and there is no more need for thin spaces (Rev 21:22).
Herod rebuilt the temple as a sign to the people that he was their king. Temple restoration was an expectation of the coming messiah, but God’s presence wasn’t there because Herod was not king. Jesus came to reclaim the throne and reestablish the temple, but the temple isn’t going to look like what they expect it to look like. The New Temple is his body, his church, filled with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus clears the temple and runs people out of it saying, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. But you have made it a den of robbers.” The purpose of entering the presence of God was for the sake of transformation. Sacred spaces are set aside so that we can draw closer to God’s presence. Prayer is where we, first and foremost, enter the presence of God. Entering the presence of God should always change us for the better. Whether God’s presence is in the temple or not, the people should recognize their need for transformation in the temple. Our transformation leads to the transformation of the world around us. This is the imagery of Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 22. In Amos 5:21-27, God says he hates their religious festivals, songs, prayers, and sacrifices because they have left the world unchanged around them. Justice needs to “roll like a river” and righteousness, “like a never-failing stream!”
Therefore, Jesus curses a fig tree that hadn’t produced fruit while out of season. Just because God’s presence isn’t currently in the temple doesn’t mean that they people shouldn’t be transformed into his rightful image bearers through prayer in the temple. This is the context in which Jesus tells his parables in chapter 12. He’s leaning on the well-known imagery of Isaiah 5:1-7 which ends “he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress.” Even when God’s presence isn’t with the people, making them “out of season,” they are called to be people of justice and righteousness.
I’ve run out of space, but I need to offer one note of interpretation for chapter 13. This whole passage is about the coming destruction of the temple in 70AD and we should be very hesitant to try and interpret for anything going on today. If this were about the “End Times” where the whole earth will be swept away, then there would be no “fleeing to the mountains” (13:14) and it wouldn’t matter if women were pregnant or nursing (13:17) or if it were winter (13:18). The context of chapter 13 is the looming destruction of the temple by the Romans where Titus will march into the Holy of Holies as the “abomination that causes desolation.” This passage reminds the Roman readers that the true temple in God’s Kingdom is the church unified as a place of prayer and transformation for the world.