Monday, May 17, 2010

Collapse Of The Temple (part 1)

Samson said, “Let me die with the Philistines!” He pushed hard and the temple collapsed on the rulers and all the people in it. He killed many more people in his death than he had killed during his life. – Judges 16:30 (NET)

Before bringing down the Philistine temple, Samson, who had been grinding in prison (16:21), was called out to entertain the assembled people. It is said that when his enemies “really started celebrating, they said, ‘Call Samson so he can entertain us!’ So they summoned Samson from the prison and he entertained them. They made him stand between the two pillars” (16:25). These, of course, were the two pillars of the Philistine temple of the God, Dagon. While there, “Samson said to the young man who held his hand, ‘Position me so I can touch the pillars that support the temple. Then I can lean on them’.” (16:26) Standing before his enemies, “Samson called to the Lord” and he said, “O Master, Lord, remember me! Strengthen me just one more time, O God, so I can get swift revenge against the Philistines for my two eyes!” (16:28) With that, “Samson said, ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ He pushed hard and the temple collapsed on the rulers and all the people in it” (16:30a).

Now, though all analogies eventually break down, we can find here an analogy between Samson and Jesus. How so? In His day, Jesus could very well have considered the authorities that controlled the Jerusalem temple to be the Philistines. Though the temple was supposed to be the house of Israel’s God, the glory of God (the shekinah) did not dwell there. Ultimately, it was a temple that existed for the honor and power of the men who controlled it. We could almost consider it to be the counterpart to the Philistine temple. Part of Jesus’ message was that He was the actual Temple of God. He even spoke of Himself and His body as a Temple, saying “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up again” (John 2:19). Indeed, in Jesus dwelt the glory of God (the shekinah), as we read in the first chapter of John (1:14), so the temple that stood in Jerusalem could now be considered to be illegitimate and redundant.

Before we get further into the record of the Gospels so as to examine Jesus’ dealings with the temple authorities, it is useful to peer into the book of the prophet Jeremiah, so as to catch a glimpse of the types of things that Jesus would have been saying and how His words would have been received. In the twenty-sixth chapter, the Lord speaks to Jeremiah, delivering instructions to him as to what to say to the people of Jerusalem and Judah on the Lord’s behalf. God says, “Tell them that the Lord says, ‘You must obey Me! You must live according to the way I have instructed you in My laws. You must pay attention to the exhortations of My servants the prophets. I have sent them to you over and over again. But you have not paid any attention to them’.” (26:4-5) We hear similar things from Jesus. He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). We find Jesus lamenting and saying, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you!” (Matthew 23:37a) In addition to that, we are able to read the “Parable of the Tenants,” in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which reflects the theme of the rejection of God’s prophets. This parable produced anger on the part of the temple authorities (chief priests and elders), as they realized, quite astutely, that it was spoken about them.

Returning to Jeremiah, we continue to hear the words of God, as He says, “If you do not obey Me, then I will do to this temple what I did to Shiloh. And I will make this city an example to be used in curses by people from all the nations on the earth” (26:6). As Jesus consistently points to Himself, His ways, and His kingdom as the locus of a needful obedience, and as we consider the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple that came about at the hands of the Romans, we do well to hear His voice in these words out of Jeremiah.

What did Jeremiah experience as a result of the words of God that he spoke? We read that “The priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah say these things in the Lord’s temple. Jeremiah had just barely finished saying all the Lord had commanded him to say to all the people. All at once some of the priests, the prophets, and the people grabbed him and shouted, ‘You deserve to die!’” (26:7-8) We’ll go on to see that this was not at all unlike that which was experienced by Jesus. Furthermore, we hear the sneering questioning of His authority to act and speak in a way that was perceived to be against the temple itself that Jesus endured as Jeremiah hears “How dare you claim the Lord’s authority to prophesy such things! How dare you claim His authority to prophesy that this temple will become like Shiloh and that this city will become an uninhabitable ruin!” (26:9)

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