Temple Cleaned!

Temple Cleaned!

29 Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah. ² He did what was right in the Lord’s sight just as his ancestor David had done.

³ In the first year of his reign, in the first month, he opened the doors of the Lord’s temple and repaired them. ⁴ Then he brought in the priests and Levites and gathered them in the eastern public square. ⁵ He said to them, “Hear me, Levites. Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Remove everything impure from the holy place. ⁶ For our ancestors were unfaithful and did what is evil in the sight of the Lord our God. They abandoned him, turned their faces away from the Lord’s dwelling place, and turned their backs on him. ⁷ They also closed the doors of the portico, extinguished the lamps, did not burn incense, and did not offer burnt offerings in the holy place of the God of Israel. ⁸ Therefore, the wrath of the Lord was on Judah and Jerusalem, and he made them an object of terror, horror, and mockery, as you see with your own eyes. ⁹ Our fathers fell by the sword, and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity because of this. ¹⁰ It is in my heart now to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel so that his burning anger may turn away from us. ¹¹ My sons, don’t be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand in his presence, to serve him, and to be his ministers and burners of incense.”

¹² Then the Levites stood up:
Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah from the Kohathites;
Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jehallelel from the Merarites;
Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah from the Gershonites;
¹³ Shimri and Jeuel from the Elizaphanites;
Zechariah and Mattaniah from the Asaphites;
¹⁴ Jehiel and Shimei from the Hemanites;
Shemaiah and Uzziel from the Jeduthunites.

¹⁵ They gathered their brothers together, consecrated themselves, and went according to the king’s command by the words of the Lord to cleanse the Lord’s temple.

¹⁶ The priests went to the entrance of the Lord’s temple to cleanse it. They took all the unclean things they found in the Lord’s sanctuary to the courtyard of the Lord’s temple. Then the Levites received them and took them outside to the Kidron Valley. ¹⁷ They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and on the eighth day of the month they came to the portico of the Lord’s temple. They consecrated the Lord’s temple for eight days, and on the sixteenth day of the first month they finished.

¹⁸ Then they went inside to King Hezekiah and said, “We have cleansed the whole temple of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the table for the rows of the Bread of the Presence and all its utensils. ¹⁹ We have set up and consecrated all the utensils that King Ahaz rejected during his reign when he became unfaithful. They are in front of the altar of the Lord.”

God demands purity. Cleanliness…but not just on the outside.

Jesus would point out very bluntly that just keeping the outside clean is like painting tombs bright white, even though there is black, stinking, rotting decay on the inside.

So why would God have the Israelites bother cleaning the…out…side…

Oh, wait it WAS the inside of the Temple they were cleaning.

 Yes.

How was this being done?

By removing all those things that represented pagan…non-Jewish…non-Christian things.

Only the things God approved of were to be there. According to His Word. Done according to how He described them to be done.

And so too, they would return what was not there…that was supposed to be there.

Of course we say, “How do we do this” as we now are the Temple of God—not just together, but each of us individually… while at the same time together as the church?

Yeah, and then end up like the Pharisees…? White-washed tombs full of dead men’s bones? No thank you!

The book I so love, The Hammer of God, by Swedish Pastor Bo Giertz, has as its Swedish edition cover art: a farmer in his field trying to remove the stones that seem to keep cropping up.

Pun intended there…as I remember my grandfather remarking that in New England, you grow more rocks than crops.

And that is this book’s Swedish title, actually – Stengrunden – literally “stone foundation”…the granite bed-rock not too far down.

It is the same with the human heart.

You see, we can keep picking up and moving these rocks, year after year…season after season…but there is still more…always more….

And then too… where to we put them?

No, even so… there is no end to it.

That is because, especially in New England, everything is sitting on granite… that goes far, far down…

And then frost will break bits off and push them up to the surface…essentially “growing” more rocks.

Same with the human heart.

Not that we shouldn’t move them when we see them. Hard to plow, plant and have good crops if you don’t.

But we will not be rid of them in this life, nor are we really doing anything about the source.

But the picking up of these stones…and putting them out of the garden…out of the field…is not our righteousness…it isn’t good enough to count.

That was what the Pharisees had wrong.

Now, it is true that everybody needs to be doing it…but not so much for ourselves… as it is for those around us.  No one needs to see your dirty laundry—your bad temper or whatever you have for pet rocks….

No, you don’t and I don’t.

Understand this, though: these stones ARE the manifestation of sin …they are as the Bible calls them, the sins that so easily beset us… predilections and predispositions… not to mention those bad habits.

And with the help of the Holy Spirit we need to cover them up… with the blood of Christ…and try and stop them from coming out.

It is not to pretend that you are not a sinner, but so that other people don’t suffer from the effects. We need to control ourselves as much as we are able.

“Be silent. Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth…” and old man once said. James talks about that in his letter.

If you can, don’t wait for God to keep you out of the casino if you have a gambling problem. You don’t wait for God to come and get you off the bar stool if you cannot control your drinking.

But…even then, some might not be able to…some ARE not able to stay out of bars and casinos.

We have to understand that none of this can be done without God’s constant help and intervention. So, He does this. He sends His agents to intervene. He sends help.

But…still…we are to remove what you can and add back what should be there. That is what we are to do, no matter the results.

Yes, remove those things in our lives that DO not belong. That causes us to stumble. If you can.

And also, add back those things that should be there. Bible study. Church attendance. Prayer. Good works.

But even doing all that…it doesn’t do anything for what is going on in the inside, at the foundation of our beings…

…though does it?

No. That is like tossing a few stones out of the garden…to build stone walls with…

The stone walls of the monastery did not help keep Luther’s sinfulness away.

We may get caught up in something that seems to be right, but it is really self-righteousness…

We might be tempted to say, “Just look at all those 3 foot high stone walls around my property. That ought to keep things….”

What…? Out? Or in?

I don’t think a deer sees them as much of an obstacle.

And they are all small stones… that we toss out… we are that weak.

So how do we cleanse the inside of the temple like the Israelites did in our text? How did Luther?

With Luther it did not start with the outside of his church. It started with him. His insides.

And Luther tried to do this himself at first…and failed.

None of the monkish stuff worked. No fasting or endless prayer could rid him of the sin crawling around inside of him.

Yeah, these stones move…seemingly on their own…and they are most of time…far too heavy for us.

So how then?

It was the same for Israel as it is for Luther and the church—for us. God must do it.

It has to be done from the outside—not beginning from our inside, and working out…

That has already been a failure for anyone who has tried. And even if WE tried to from the outside—like with all those things that monks would do—fasting, beating the body (Luther did just that), or going on pilgrimages…

What I am saying is it must be from an agent that is not us…not from us.

Not using our things. Not by using our methods. Not by our way of doing things.

No, it must be according to God’s prescription.

The temple in Israel was set right by going back to the Word of God. Luther and the church were set right by going back to the Word of God as well.

It is what cleanses. The washing of the water of the Word. The Law and the Gospel properly divided.

It was not according to the Law that Israel was clean. It was not according to whatever monkish rules Luther kept that his sin was covered.

It was that the means of Grace were restored so that people could have the benefits of these things of God… and these ways of God…that He provides.

True Worship was re-introduced and re-established so as to call and lead people to the Grace and Mercy that God gives abundantly through it. The Gospel. The forgiveness of sins.

We think of Worship all on our end. But we can’t…no we can’t worship God…not unless God first has His way with us…not until He cleans us off and feeds us…

Then and only then can we properly respond.

You see, God, by His means, adds rich topsoil as he continually blasts away at the granite foundation. Out of this He causes great crop yields. From His watering and tilling the soil, and from what He plants, much fruit is produced.

But it is done right here. It is done in and with His tools. The Word of God and His Word filled Sacraments.

What do we do? How do we respond? According to His invitation. Come and be cleansed and fed. This… Sunday after Sunday… season after season. Until the stone foundation is gone and only a living foundation…one He has re-created remains… covered by His rich and well-watered soil.  Amen.

Podcast: Play in new window

Subscribe: RSS