Dear Friend,
‘I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.’ (Matthew 12:6).
"The Pharisees had confronted Jesus, accusing his disciples of desecrating the Sabbath by plucking grain. While purporting to keep faith alive, these serious-minded people had begun to destroy it with sterile practices, and routine procedures."
"To them, Jesus said," ‘One greater than the temple is here.’
"It was a shocking thing to say to ardent religionists. It was an offensive thing to say to people whose life revolved around the temple with its elaborate rituals and laws. There is no way around the sharpness of Jesus' critique. He was castigating the contraptions by which men and women seek to gain control of God; to secure his services, and guarantee his favor."
"The temple of pious practices and sophisticated symbols must be seen for what it is-a mere shadow of something far greater. God can not be contained by our religious forms, nor can he be managed by them. If we think so, we have repeated an age-old mistake. That temple must be... torn down---to make way for Jesus Christ."
"Contrary to what many have thought, faith does not come through doctrines, creeds, institutions and forms. Its origins are more mundane. It is born in the fact that men and women must live. They have to live in a universe that drives them to ask questions. What am I? Who is this person that I call me? Am I the sum of these wild impulses within myself, or am I really the noble creature I sometimes aspire to be? Why do I do things I despise, and why do I seek the destruction of those who offend me? Why am I here at this time, in this particular place, and not here at some other time and place? Can I be free of the many things that bind me, spirit and body?-guilt , fear, despair? Why is there so much pain?"
"Questions like these are the furnace out of which the golden treasure of faith is forged. The one who wrote: ‘In the beginning God,’ would not have done so if he had not first pondered why there was life. The Psalmist would not have sung, ‘The Lord is my shepherd,’ unless he had struggled with fear and futility. Job affirmed, ‘I know that my redeemer lives,’ after he struggled with the miseries of pain and injustice. Faith comes as men and women encounter God, in the questions raised by existence itself."
"When Jesus said, ‘One greater than the temple is here,’ he was drawing attention to himself as a surpassing religious center; a personal worship place, to which men and women might repair with their questions and longings. No other figure more thoroughly bespeaks human experience, than Jesus-especially on his cross. Naked, shamed, wounded in body, and tortured in spirit, he cries out: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Down into the abyss he goes, but in three days, he rises."
"This is why Jesus is greater than all other holy places, holy people and holy things. In him, questions, pain, even death become shining portals in the gloom. Utter calamity is transformed into utter blessing. The moment of despair is the birthplace of faith."
"May Jesus Christ, be Lord."
Yours in service,
Ron J. Allen.