Today’s Scripture Reading (June 29, 2016): 1 Chronicles 21
It would be easy to suggest that, maybe, the Temple in Jerusalem should be built somewhere other than on Temple Mount. After all, churches move all the time. But that suggestion misses the importance of Temple Mount, a place that many hold to be Mount Moriah of the Hebrew Bible. To understand the importance of Temple Mount in Jerusalem, you have to understand the story. It is not just a piece of real estate in the Old City of Jerusalem – and it is the story that makes it important.
The story of Mount Moriah begins with that travels of a father and son riding away from home to make a sacrifice to their God. The father was Abraham and the son was Isaac. And what Abraham knew, and what Isaac didn’t know, was that God had instructed Abraham to sacrifice his only son as a way of proving his trust in his God. It must have been the worst camping trip in history. But just as Abraham was about to sacrifice his only son on a crude altar he had built for his God, God stopped him. A ram was found caught in a thicket close by, and it was the ram that lost its life that day, and not Isaac. The Mountain, Mount Moriah, became the place that death stopped. It was a place of life and joy because Isaac lived and went home. I can’t imagine the depth of despair as Abraham went up on the mountain to carry out the sacrifice. And I can’t imagine the height of joy as Abraham and Isaac both came off of the mountain alive.
Time passes, the children of Abraham and Isaac eventually leave the area. The nation of Israel which sprang from the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was not born in Canaan, but rather in slavery in Egypt. But, eventually, they escape their slavery and they come back. The land is inhabited by different peoples who have built cities that did not exist when Jacob and his sons had left the land. Mount Moriah still existed, but it existed within the walls of the city of Jebus, the home of the Jebusites. We know Jebus by a different name, Jerusalem. David conquerors the city of Jerusalem and he makes it his capital
But David’s disobedience near the end of his life almost caused him to lose his city. God sent a plague to Israel as punishment for the King’s sin. And Jerusalem was not supposed to be spared. I love the translation the NIV uses of this verse. And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and relented concerning the disaster … Just a little word, it. What exactly was it that God saw? According to the story, the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite was at the top of a very familiar mountain – Mount Moriah. Is it possible that as the angel moved into Jerusalem, what God saw was a memory of a man who had come to this mountain to sacrifice his son? I think David thought so. And so death stopped here for a second time, at the top of Mount Moriah.
As David began to put things together, as the story started to come together in his mind, something else became apparent. David had always wanted to build a Temple for his God. The plans had probably been a little vague up until this point. But now everything was coming together. David would buy this spot off of Araunah, and this would be where the Temple of Jerusalem would be built – at the place where twice death stopped.
When you know the story, it isn’t hard to understand the meaning that Temple Mount holds for the Jews. It is so much deeper than just the place where they worshiped in ancient times. It is the place where death stops. A place, where from the beginning time, God was worshiped. Mount Moriah was important to two of Israel’s great men of faith, Abraham and David. So why would they not want to worship there?
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1 Chronicles 22
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