The Church -- A Temple

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.  In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.  And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22) The Temple in the Old Testament was the place where earth and heaven met.  It was the place where God caused his name to dwell.  It was the tangible place where God was present, on earth with his people. Paul has just finished telling us how Jesus, in his cross, has abolished all the dividing walls of hostility that divided Israel from everyone else in the world.  There were inner and outer courts that separated Israel from the nations.  But no more.  There was an inner veil that separated the presence of God from his people.  But no more.  All these dividing walls have been torn up and torn down in the cross of Christ. Jesus himself came as that place where heaven and earth meet.  God became man, took on flesh, dwelt among us.  In his cross, the temple was torn down.  In the three days leading up to his resurrection it was rebuilt.  And in the gift of the Spirit—that temple exploded out into the world such that wherever two or three gather in the name of Jesus, God is there with them.   Now the Spirit continually gathers people together in gatherings we call the church—building them up into incarnations of God's temple.  They become little houses of prayer and worship where heaven and earth meet as the prayer "on earth as it is in heaven" is prayed.   To understand ourselves—together in faith as a church—under this image of the temple has a few implications.   Firstly, the temple is the place where worship happens.  It is the place where we hear God speak, and where we speak with him in prayer and songs.  It is the place where we receive nourishment in word and sacrament for our faith.  It is the place where we surrender ourselves and our offerings.  It is the place of confession and assurance where the covenant is regularly renewed.  Worship happens in the temple that we, together as the church, are. Secondly, and more specifically, the temple is the place where prayers of intercession are offered on behalf of one another and on behalf of the world.  We together are priests—continually bringing the needs and hurts of this world before the God who is present among and within us, gathered as his temple.   Thirdly, we can do this work of worship and intercession because the temple is the place where God dwells.  Coming together, in faith, as the church comes with this promise that through the Spirit—God is indeed Immanuel—with us.  He lives in our community.  He is present in our worship.  He hears our prayers of intercession.  We not only have direct access to the Father—we commune with him in our conversation of worship and our sharing of the meal.  Thanks be to God!