Today’s Scripture Reading (March 18,
2016): 1 Chronicles 17
Science
fiction has long been attracted to talismans of power. If someone is exhibiting
unusual or even impossible abilities, usually you can find a talisman somewhere
that is actually enabling the behavior.
Of course, once you realize that the power has a source outside of the
person you are fighting, your path is clear. Stop fighting the person and find
and destroy the talisman. Once that happens, then the evil person that you are
fighting will fall easily. If only it was that easy in real life.
I really
think that we have traditionally missed the point in God’s refusal to allow David to
build the temple. I definitely think that David, and Nathan, missed the point.
The essential problem is that David wanted to build a talisman of power for
God; a place where God physically would live. His idea seemed to be that
because he lived in a house, God needed a house that he could live in – and that
house should be at least as beautiful as the palace of the king. But God had no
desire to reside in a house no matter how beautiful that house might be. God
went wherever Israel went. He had no need for a talisman of any kind.
In the mind
of God, David’s son would build the temple that he would dwell in – and God did
not mean Solomon, who was responsible for building the first Temple in
Jerusalem. God meant Jesus. Jesus would build the Temple of God in the lives of
those who dared to believe in him. It was a power and a talisman that could never
be destroyed because God would be wherever his people lived.
But David’s
misunderstanding had a great impact on
the belief of the Israel. When Babylon came in and destroyed the Temple in
Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E., essentially what they were doing was destroying the
talisman of power for the God of Israel. As a result of the destruction of the
talisman, the people would lose any fight that they had within them – their power
to resist would be gone. And, unfortunately, Israel bought into the process.
Psalm 137, a Psalm that was written at
the beginning of the Babylonian exile contains this line - How
can we sing the songs of the Lord while
in a foreign land (Psalm 137:4)? The question is essentially this, how can we praise
the God of Israel while we are away from his Temple – the talisman of his power?
(There is no mention in the Psalm of the destruction of the Temple so we assume
the Psalm was written just prior to 586 B.C.E.) Of course, the answer is
simple. You can sing the songs of the Lord while you are in a strange land
because you can be sure that God is with you. He has no need for a Temple. God
refuses to be confined within a house of brick and mortar. But David had missed
that message, and so the rest of Israel seems to have missed it as well.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: 1
Chronicles 18
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