Preparation for a Beautiful Construction
One summer, when
I was in college, my family took the opportunity to travel through Europe. One of the places we stopped along the way a
castle in Vienne Austria. The castle is
called Schonnbrun, or “beautiful spring”.
The castle gets its name from the natural underground spring that feeds
the reflecting pools and ponds on the palace grounds and in the gardens. The palace is palatial and the décor in
rich. Gold leaf in the paint on the
walls; each room filled with sculptures and words of art. Every piece of furniture was rich and ornate,
each one hand crafted and one of a kind.
The entire palace is a livable (although just barely) work of art. Walking through the palace, you couldn’t help
but be impressed with its beauty.
If you turn in the pages of the Old Testament
to the book of 2 Chronicles, you will get the description of a structure even
more richly appointed and more carefully crafted. The book records for us Solomon’s
construction of a temple, a place for the worship of the true God. Solomon’s father David began collecting the
building materials even before Solomon began his reign and there were stores of
gold and precious jewels and fine metals and costly wood all stockpiled for use
in this house that would serve as the Lord’s throne room among his people. It was a palace fit for Heaven’s King where he would come to rule amidst his people. And there, at his atonement seat he would
give out mercy to those who came seeking his forgiveness and favor.
Give the
plans for either structure to any modern day contractor and you are sure to
have him scratching his head. The work
and the effort to construct either building would be staggering. And not just because of the materials and
skill of the craftsmanship. The place
where each was built is its own obstacle.
The Palace Schonnbrun was built in a marsh – the soggy site had to be
filled in with load after load of soil so that the palace could have a firm
foundation. And Solomon’s temple? Well, that was constructed on the top of a
mountain. Can you imagine the work
needed to be done to carve off the top of that mountain to create a level place
to begin laying stone?
As
challenging a construction project as either one of these examples might have
been – there is an even greater project; greater in its beauty and appointment,
but also greater in its challenge to build and prepare. It is a temple built by the Lord himself, a
place for him to dwell. But it is not built with brick and mortar,
chisel and stone. Instead this is a temple
of human flesh. A temple of the heart no
less, where the Lord himself sends his Spirit to dwell. And that temple is the heart of the
Christian. It is you! You are a temple of the Holy Spirit; or so
says St. Paul, by virtue of the price paid for you by Jesus himself and by
virtue of your baptism that gives to you God’s Spirit. And if Solomon spared no expense to construct
his temple so that it would be worthy for the Lord and appointed richly enough
for a Heaven’s King, then certainly this temple is no exception.
Now, our
sermon this morning is really a sermon in two parts. The first part, where we have come so far,
the temple of the Spirit – the walking Spiritual mansions that you are; well,
in all truth, that is the second part of our message today. The first part is to talk about the
construction of this temple.
You see, as
we said, when Solomon built his temple he had to shave how many yards of dirt
from the top of Mount Zion? The thought
of it is staggering. All of it done
before the days of our gigantic trucks and tractors that can carry away several
tons of dirt at a time. Likewise, When Schonnbrun
was built, its engineers had to import load after load of dirt to create a
suitable site before they could begin
construction. The same can be said for you.
Within each Christian, the Lord builds for himself a temple. But right off the bat you’re not quite ready
for that construction to begin. Just
like Solomon’s temple and the Venetian Palace needed to have the landscape rearranged before they were ready for construction to
begin, the Lord does that identical thing with us.
Rearranging the Landscape
When any
building project is begun the site is prepared through the work of the
engineers who find and fill the low spots and to cut down the high spots. When the Lord purposes to prepare the hearts
of people, like you and me, to receive his construction plan, the Lord does
this work through the preacher armed with God’s Word of Law.
We can see
this process occur so clearly in our Gospel text. The Lord himself was on his way to construct
his kingdom; heaven’s king had come to earth and he brought with him the reign
of heaven; but before construction could begin the Lord sent his engineer to
bulldoze – to push and pull down. To
make ready the hearts of the people to receive God’s gift of grace.
This is what
the Gospel writer is telling us in our text this morning. Luke tell us that John, “Went into all the
region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness
of sins.” And then Luke proceeds to quote verses from Old Testament prophets to
give us further understanding of the work that John was coming to do. John was, “The voice of one crying in the
wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley
shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked
shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all
flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” (Luke 3:3-6 ESV)
Luke goes on
to tell us the content of John’s message, this Word given by God. It was a word of judgment. Fiery and pointed. John’s word condemned each and every sin of
each and every sinner. His message was
terrifying.
“You brood
of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits in
keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have
Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise
up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.
Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into
the fire.” (Luke 3:7-9 ESV)
The message
is clear. The king is coming. He is coming to you. He is bringing with him his right and
righteous judgment and each person, each man woman and child from the least to
the greatest, will be condemned. Repent. John came to rearrange the landscape in us so
that we would be ready to receive the kingdom.
You see, it
is the Lord’s intention to build in you a temple, rich and glorious. A temple that exceeds even the beauty of the
one built by Solomon. But you and I – in
our natural state - we are far from ready for construction to begin. Our hearts must be prepared.
·
We
are sometimes too high and lofty – prideful and overconfident, convinced we
deserve to be the dwelling place of the Lord.
·
And
then there are the other times that we are too low, choosing to “slum it” as we
test the boundaries to see just how low and down in the dirt we can get.
·
And
then there are the times that where the Lord demands we be straight and true,
we choose the crooked and deceptive path.
·
And
finally, where the Lord would have us be smooth – kind and generous and loving,
our demeanor can get a bit rough; jostling and jarring those we run
across.
And so the
Lord levels us off. He sends his
preachers out in to the world to pull us down from our lofty heights, to pull
us out of the mud, straighten us up and level us off. The
Lord sends out his prophets.
Building the Lord's Temple... In You
The Lord’s
prophets preach repentance. Our Gospel
text tells us that John came to preach repentance. The goal wasn’t just come to cut everyone
down to size, to condemn and criticize, he did just have in mind to make people
feel badly about themselves. The work of
the preacher is to help you to see yourself for who you really are, that is to
say, to see yourself the way the Lord sees you.
John preached God’s Word and God’s Word says about us that we are
sinners. But there is a purpose for
preaching this message.
In the same
way that a bulldozer doesn’t bulldoze just for the fun of pushing around the
dirt, the Lord doesn’t send his preachers to preach God’s law into our hearts
just for the fun of condemning us. No,
this is only the first stage in the Lord’s construction plan. The Lord is building out of you a beautiful
temple.
The message preached
by John was repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Our small catechism says that repentance has
two parts, contrition (or sorrow for sin) and faith. Contrition is that condemnation part, where
we see the truth of who we really are in the preaching of God’s law. But that is only part, only the first
half. The temple still has not been
built. After contrition comes faith.
You see,
Johns work was to prepare hearts to meet Jesus.
And as John was out baptizing in the wilderness, low and behold Jesus
came. Jesus, the perfect, sinless Son of
God, stepped down into the water. In
that action the King became a commoner, the clean climbed down into the muck
and the mire, and he was anointed with our sin.
At that moment Jesus took on the work of living as one of us in our
place so that when this work was done he could be nailed to the cross for us in
our place. The construction of the
temple built for you by Jesus himself was built for you by the absolutely
perfect and clean and without sin life that Jesus lived for you in your
place. Throughout the life of Jesus, as
he was teaching and healing and helping and forgiving and loving and serving he
was collecting the building materials, the costly provisions that would go into
the construction of you, dear Christian.
And then, when all that was finished, when the final work was complete,
the one thing left to be done the final gift to be given that Jesus would
prepare for you was the gift of his own life.
Jesus gave his life into death as he died on the cross for you.
The other
half of repentance is faith. The other
half of repentance is to look onto the cross of Jesus, see him dying there in his
suffering and see on that cross the one who died in your place. The other half of repentance is simply to say
of Jesus as he hangs that He did this for me.
And then its
gone. The sin that ruffles and rumbles
your heart and makes you unfit to be the Spirits temple, why, that is gone. It is carried away in a moment never to be
seen again. The Lord has made you ready
and prepared, the Lord has built out of you a beautiful temple, a palace from
which he comes to reign and rule, from where he hands out his gifts of love and
mercy and service and help and healing, both for you but also through you. You serve as God’s heart and hands and help in
the place where you live because you are his holy temple.
There are
some construction projects that far outshine all others – that are world renown
for their beauty and ingenuity and style and costliness. But you, my friend, my fellow Christian brothers
and sisters you far outshine them all, because Christ has built on you a temple
that is fit even for him to live.
In the name
of Jesus.
Amen.
