Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Memorial of Saint Pius of Pietrelcina, Priest
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Temples
King Darius issued an order to the officials:
“Let the governor and elders of the Jews
continue the work on that house of God;
they are to rebuild it on its former site.
In our time worshiping God might take place on the rim of the Grand Canyon – a grand temple in itself – or it might take place in St. Peter’s Basilica – the papal church – or in Grace Covenant Church – across the street from our apartment in Austin.
But for the Jews, first there was Moses’ tabernacle, built and then carried around for 500 years or so. It was sacred and precious to the Jews, who placed it in places untouched by death, clean in the eyes of the Lord (Num 19:16). There were few such places.
First they chose Gilgal (“circle”) near Jericho. After seven years the tabernacle was moved to a more central location, which the priests called Shiloh (“place of peace”). I visited a Methodist church called Shiloh Chapel near the battle lines of the Civil War battle of the same name, where this place of peace served as headquarters for union General William Tecumseh Sherman. In the Promised Land, the tabernacle at Shiloh housed the ark of the covenant for 350 years, and a religious community of priests, Levites and dedicated virgins developed around it.
You’d think this place would be a holy town, but instead its immorality quickly became infamous in Israel. After a civil war between the Benjamites and the rest of Israel, the victors captured four hundred virgins dedicated to temple service and gave them as wives to soldiers who had lost their families.
Old Testament history of the next two hundred years does not include the name of a single high priest. The author of the book of Judges summarizes: “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” God’s command and Moses’ entreaty for the Israelites to “choose life” degenerated in an atmosphere of anarchy and indifference.
Two hundred ugly years later the system’s checks and balances finally failed utterly during Eli’s day. Desperate, the Israelite army decided to carry the Ark of the Covenant away from its tabernacle at Shiloh, believing that Yahweh would never allow it to be captured. But they were wrong, and when the Philistines defeated God’s “chosen,” they also took the Ark. Eli, hearing the news, fell off his stool and died.
In less than a century David recovered the ark, and David’s son Solomon would begin building the first temple in Jerusalem, which then would be destroyed four hundred years later by Nebuchadnezzar as the Israelite deportation and exile began. The ark itself was stolen again, and this time never recovered.
No wonder that, after the passing of seventy more years, when Cyrus and then Darius ordered the rebuilding of the temple, there was rejoicing throughout the land. This new temple would be the Jewish center of worship for nearly six hundred years, until the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD, a few decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, Christ-followers no longer required a temple but only a landing place in each man and woman’s heart.
Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.
(Ezra 6, Psalm 122, Luke 11, Luke 8)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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