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The Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ (Candlemas)
Almighty and everliving God, we humbly beseech thee that, as thy only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple, so we may be presented unto thee with pure and clean hearts by the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Scripture citation(s): Haggai 2:1-9
A Sermon by
Fr. Daniels
on
Haggai 2:1-9
✛
The Temple, in Jerusalem
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The story of the Temple that stood in Jerusalem is the story of God being with his people.
The original Temple—the first Temple—was built in the tenth century BC by King Solomon.[1] It’s no coincidence that the Temple was constructed at that particular time: Solomon’s kingship followed that of David, during whose reign Israel went from being an obscure national entity, weak and peripheral to the region’s powers, to being a small empire, commanding the respect—and envy—of the surrounding nations. Israel was at a high point in the tenth century. Under King David, what had been a loosely-affiliated assembly of tribes became a unified country under a single monarch. Solomon reaped the benefits of those political and economic developments. The first book of the Kings says that Solomon “exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom.”
And it was at this time of great material prosperity that Solomon decided that God should have a house in which to dwell, and it was to be in Jerusalem, the city of David. Solomon’s Temple was magnificent; he was never one to do things by half measure. Built according to the most advanced Phoenician architectural means, gilded in a way that befit its significance, the Ark of God went from being in a humble tent to a magnificent palace. It became the central locus of Hebrew worship, the “navel” of the world, the place where heaven and earth met. In spite of Solomon’s other faults—and they were many—the construction of the Temple was a lasting achievement. The eventual importance of the Temple for the life of that community cannot be overstated.
But it was destroyed, razed to the ground in 587 BC. After more than 400 years, an aggressive Babylonian army sought to wipe out the community and its culture, and they just about did. Jerusalem was shattered. The Temple was destroyed. Many of the citizens were sent into exile; by the waters of Babylon, they sat down and wept when they remembered Jerusalem, and its Temple, now gone. Even after the exile, when the Jews returned, the devastating consequences remained: the Ark of the Covenant was lost, and would never be seen again. Solomon’s legacy was destroyed.
It’s in that context that we hear today’s reading from the book of the prophet Haggai, the first lesson. The people of Jerusalem, after the exile, still suffered, and couldn’t regain their pre-exilic prosperity. It seemed like the universe itself was against them. Haggai identified the problem: there was no Temple. The community had been going about its business of reconstruction without much success, because it had ignored the most important reconstruction of all. The Lord speaks through Haggai and says “You have built your own houses; but you have ignored God’s house. And thus all of your efforts have come to naught.” First things first.
And the people of Jerusalem heeded Haggai’s call, and began work on the Temple in 520 BC. It was dedicated only a few months later, and God responds with a renewal of the covenant: “From this day on I will bless you.” And sure enough, though the life of Israel was far from serene, the Temple itself hung on for centuries as the place where God was worshiped day in and day out, festival after festival, season after season, in ceremonies of repentance and of thanksgiving, and to mark significant moments in the life of the community.
It was, once again, the sign of the presence of God with his people. It was the fulfillment of the promises that God had made.
It was that Temple nearly 500 years later, the same Temple that Haggai had implored the people to build, that a young woman named Mary, and her husband Joseph, went to, forty days after the birth of their child—the young Jesus. They were there to present this baby to the Lord, in fulfillment of Jewish law. According to Exodus, firstborn sons were to be dedicated to God. This was a law that traced back to the event of the Exodus itself, when the firstborn sons of the Jews were preserved, while the Egyptian sons were killed, enabling the liberation of the Jews from oppression. It was also part of the general thanksgiving for the birth of a child: the re-incorporation of mother and child into the community of faith, represented by their sacrificial offering.[2]
It’s a fascinating image to think of: Mary and Joseph slowly climbing the steps of the Second Temple, the baby in their arms. At that moment, in that place, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant physically meet. The Son of God enters the House of God. The Second Temple, in which God dwells, holds the Third Temple, the child who is God himself. The Temple’s sanctuary is approached by the young Mary, who had herself been the sanctuary for Jesus from his conception to his birth. It is that magnificent moment, of these two worlds meeting, that we celebrate today, the Feast of the Presentation.
For a time, these two Temples would exist side by side—the building and the person—as that Jewish Holy Family continued to worship as their ancestors did, in the same place their ancestors did, right back to Haggai. The religious life of the Jews had changed since then, of course; synagogues had since been built to accommodate those who had dispersed from the center of Jerusalem. But the Temple was still central. Even for the group of Jesus-followers who would later be termed “Christians,” after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension it was the Jerusalem Temple that remained the center of worship. When the Spirit of God descended upon them at Pentecost, and they recognized that God was still in their midst, it was to the Temple they went, celebrating and praising God the whole time. Where else would they go? Jesus had gone there, after all, his entire life, and the famous scene of his “cleansing” of the Temple—driving out the moneychangers—showed how important he considered the Temple’s purity. He certainly hadn’t wanted it ignored or, worse, destroyed; the apostles clearly didn’t think so.
But utterly destroyed it was. It wasn’t the Babylonians or the Greeks this time, but the Romans in 70 AD, intent on crushing a rebellion. After that cataclysmic event, God no longer dwelled with the people in Solomon’s Temple, or in the Second Temple, inspired by Haggai.
The Third Temple, however—the Temple of Jesus’ body—has endured, and, in some respects, the Third Temple maintains an unbroken line of continuity with the former ones. Solomon’s Temple was destroyed; the Second Temple was destroyed; but God refused to be separated from his people, and so he raised Jesus from the dead on the third day. So this Third Temple is still in Jerusalem, to be sure, but not only in Jerusalem. Jesus’ body can be found in three places now: in heaven, where he reigns with the Father until his return; at the altar, where the bread and wine of the Eucharist become his body and blood; and in his people—the Church as the body, with Christ as its head. Haggai’s prophecy meant more than he had known. “The desire of [the] nations shall come,” he had said, and indeed they have—we have, Gentiles, flocking to worship Israel’s God through the Temple of his Presence, never again to be separated.
_______________
[1] Biblical chronology is notoriously contested. This homily utilizes the work of Bernhard Anderson, in Understanding the Old Testament, and Eric Meyers, in the introductory essay to Haggai in The New Interpreter’s Study Bible.
[2] For details on the dual purpose of the presentation, see Raymond Brown, “The Presentation of Jesus”, in Worship 51(1).
