Reflection on the Word on the Sunday of November 14, 2021
Mark 13:1-4 - THE TEMPLE OF THE HEART
As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, "Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!" Then Jesus asked him, "Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down." When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?"
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Spending time in the Jewish Temple was an important part of the life of Jesus and the disciples. It can be surprising, but Christianity at this point of time had not existed yet. Jesus and his disciples were not Christians in any ways, they were Jews, full fledged members of the Jewish society. They belonged to an offshoot, sectarian group of the Qumran Essenes, and their group was called the Nazarenes or the Ebionites, which latter name means the Poor in English, or they were referred simply the Way.
The Essenes had a designated place in the outer church buildings and in the church court, where Jesus and the disciples spent their time, which was dedicated to the temple. That is why, it is in the Gospel, that "he came out of the temple."
Maybe it is not immediately obvious, but the story of the Temple in Jerusalem starts with Abraham. The ancient temples in Mesopotamia and Assyria and Egypt were dark places of bloodthirsty gods and human sacrifices, including children sacrifices, where black magic thrived and sanctified orgies were listed among the regular business ours. And overarching slavery penetrated everything and hovered everywhere around these temples.
There was only one man who withstood the wicked flow.
It was Abraham. He single-handedly success-managed two revolutions in his lifetime. Real revolutions. Revolution, which does not create new tyranny, but dissolves tyranny. A real revolution, not like the French one in 1789, ended up in unimaginable bloodshed of the innocents of the guillotine terror, and evolved into the Empire of its butcher emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. Also not like the Russian revolution in 1917, which ended up with the iron boot of the execution squads and the gulags of decades.
Abraham was not a tyrant. He was known of his loving kindness. He had the divine revelation in his heart, the visions in his dreams, and was visited by the angel of the Lord. He was a prophet and a righteous man. He made his stand for the Lord, that God is one and only one.
It was the first revolution. It meant for the world and the nations that their false gods, statues and idols are not only fake but lifeless man-made images that can not speak, can not hear, can not act lacking any power. It also meant that all activities in the pagan temples are not only fake, but blasphemous idolatry. And we know, that most of the time they were either adulterous activities or moreover bloodthirsty activities, demanding not only the blood of the sacrificial animals, but also of humans, used for sacrifices in those pagan temples.
The philosophy behind the sacrifices was that by the sheer amount of the sacrificed animals and often humans the society somehow could force the gods to grant the bids of the nations. It was not the realm of the sacred, but the realm of the occult.
The Bible says, that God sent Abraham away from his homeland, called Ur-Kasdim of Chaldea, but actually he had to fled that country, as he was sentenced to death by fire by the King of that land. According to the tradition he survived the deadly ordeal unharmed.
At the time of his second revolution he aged more than 100 years, and again he withstood the occult practice of the nations of the world in the Middle East.
For long millennia it was the general religious habit in the Middle East that the first born male children were thrown into the fire as a burnt sacrifice to the gods. As it is written in the fifth book of Moses, in chapter 12, that God forbids Israel to follow the practices of the neighboring nations by commanding that You shall not do so to the Lord your God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hates, have they done to their gods; for even their sons and their daughters do they burn in the fire to their gods.
On the way of his second revolution, it is in the Bible, that God commanded Abraham to take his son Isaac to the Mount Moriah, in order to kill and burn him as a burnt sacrifice to God. Even, if it is written, it is very questionable that God ever had said this to Abraham, as it is clear from the Old Testament that the human sacrifice is a detestable abomination in the eyes of God, and it is also written that God never tests anybody with evil. There is no, or there should be no tricky trial or wicked test from God, like that for my sake please commit an abomination, because I want to see whether you are faithful or obedient enough by evil doing.
It was rather that Abraham had to have this fight in his own mind against the pressing religious belief of the continent and his era, that if you revere the gods, or in Abraham's case, if you revere the only one God, then you have to show it in your action of reverence, by sacrificing your firstborn child to God.
If it was an abomination after the decision of Abraham, it must have been an abomination before the intended action, as well. Nonetheless, Abraham had to come up with the conclusion in his own heart, that it is indeed an abomination, and I will not do that. Not me, not my family, not my descendants, more numerous than the stars in the skies, or the people of the future agreeing with me.
Abraham was right and righteous, as it is written in the Book of Genesis, chapter 12, God told him, that I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you."
However, the revolution did not stop with Abraham. The Prophets of Israel and Judah many times questioned the effectiveness of the animal sacrifices in the Temple of Jerusalem.
Prophet Micah asked that "Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" Prophet Hosea stated in the name of the Lord that
“ For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. “ The Essenes and the Nazarenes vehemently opposed the sacrifices in the Temple. Jesus himself, let the animals go free from the church court.
After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, the rabbis rightfully declared that until the temple of Jerusalem will be rebuilt, the prayers will substitute the sacrifices in the Temple. The Apostle Paul asked the obvious from the Corinthian congregation in his first letter to them, in chapter 3, that “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? ”
We should realize that in the Temple of our hearts, the sacrifices are made of prayers to change our lives into the right direction of becoming more and more holy in our thoughts, speeches and deeds, as we are getting closer and closer to the Creator, our Grandfather, in following Jesus, our brother, by the Holy Spirit, for the greater glory of the Lord,
AMEN
