Is there a way out of this human cycle of rescue, home, institution, oppression?
In just a short time after the dedication of the temple, oppression rises as political power distances from Yahweh and tries to extend its own reach. As Walter Brueggemann writes in The Prophetic Imagination, “God is now “on call,” and access to him [sic] is controlled by the royal court…it gives the king a monopoly so that no marginal person may approach this God except on the king’s terms.” (p. 29)
The bible records the witness of prophets rising up, crying out, reminding kings and queens of their responsibility for the suffering they are inflicting on the poor and oppressed. With very few exceptions, these rulers ignore the prophets, defending their own institutions and power as the poor suffer.
So it all gets broken, and the whole nation finds itself in exile, crying out together for rescue. Cycle rebooted.
Ezekiel gives the first glimpse of a new movement of God, something which might move beyond the repeating cycle. God gives Ezekiel a vision of a new temple, one where the Spirit of God enters through the east entrance with “the roar of rushing waters, and the whole landscape shone” (Ez. 43:2). It’s almost a melding of the previous icons of worship, the powerful God of the tabernacle coming into the temple—and this time, to make a home. “This is the place of my throne and the place where I will rest my feet. I will live here forever among the people of Israel.” (Ez. 43:7)
More than just combining tabernacle presence and temple stability, there’s a picture of God’s embrace of all the world, and not just little Israel. Ezekiel sees a vision of a stream exploding from the temple and flowing out to all the world, growing and deepening as it goes. “There will be swarms of living things wherever the water of this river flows…Life will flourish wherever this water flows.” (Ez. 47:9)
As the prophetic witness moves forward, this expansion to include all the world continues to grow. Isaiah picks up the theme: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Could you build me a temple as good as that? Could you build me such a resting place?” (Is. 66:1) God’s breaking of the oppression cycle includes a vision that brings divine life to all the earth, to all creation.
By the time we get to John’s Revelation of Christ’s return, a temple is no longer the future. An entire New Jerusalem descends out of heaven from God. There is no temple in the city, “for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” (Rev. 21:22)
“The city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the world will enter the city in all their glory…And all the nations will bring their glory and honor into the city.”
(Rev. 21:23-26)
Revelation even includes Ezekiel’s river, flowing directly from God and the Lamb, watering a new tree of life: “The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations.” (Rev. 22:2)
The future to which God is moving us is one of intimacy, where we draw the essentials of life (light and water) from God’s very self. God makes Their home among us! The future to which God is moving us is one where all the world lives and has a place, and where God is the center, not a tool for one nation’s political power.
May we escape the cycle of tabernacle and temple, and move away from fear, away from using God for our power—and instead move toward home, toward intimacy with and dependence upon the Divine.
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