Falling Leaves and the Tumbling Temple

While some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, [Jesus] said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Luke 21:5-6 ESV) As Jesus journeys to the cross in Luke’s gospel, He comes to the temple in Jerusalem. While its magnificent stones and structural beauty call forth a sense of awe, amazement, and adoration, the true Temple of Christ’s own body must be destroyed for our prayers to be heard and our sins to be forgiven. Today at International Lutheran Church, we draw near the end of the church year with a profound appreciation for how God builds us up by tearing Himself apart. What does this mean for you and me?

Fall is a beautiful season. The golden and amber leaves of Namsan may have come a little later this year, but I still appreciate the spectacular view they provide from the parsonage window. Most of the time we have lived in Asia has been in the sub-tropics where the changing color of the seasons is less pronounced, if at all. Maybe this is why I enjoy the golden ginkgo leaves and the deep crimson of the maple leaves as they drift to the ground. Yet I must confess that sometimes I feel it a pity that their beauty doesn’t remain on the tree. Here, though, is perhaps a lesson that their “fall” is necessary for the healing nutrients of their beauty to be put back in the earth below their roots.

The end of the church year and the beginning of the next have a unique similarity. Both reflect on the coming of the Son of Man in glory and the destruction that is coming upon the earth while at the same time holding to the great and glorious day of the culmination of Jesus’ first coming – His cross, His death, and finally His resurrection from the dead. While these words of Jesus in the gospel today likely brought shock and panic to the first disciples as they perhaps do for us today, the cross of Jesus calls us to see these things from a completely different point of view – a point of faith.

As Jesus reaches His destiny and arrives in Jerusalem in Luke’s gospel, the temple takes center stage. The temple is, after all, the focus of the faith of God’s people. What had been proposed by David, a House for the Lord, and accomplished by David’s son, Solomon, was in the end a shadow of the very presence of God to come in the person of the Messiah Himself. The temple was the House of God – the place where His glory dwells. It was also the place of prayer where sins were forgiven and new hope shared. But just as the people of God in the Old Testament had failed to appreciate the purpose of the temple in the events of God’s salvation, so they failed to see the Stone that would become the very Cornerstone of God’s presence with us – Jesus – the place where sins are truly forgiven and all prayers answered.

Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the temple not only pointed to the coming day of wrath and vengeance because of our sinfulness, but also to His own day of reckoning and the judgement that would fall upon Him. His golden skin marred crimson with His Blood would be the first fulfillment of these words – “Not one stone left upon another.” On the cross Jesus was destroyed. But just as the autumn leaves fall to the ground to provide new life for the tree, so His lifeless Body gives way to the healing of the nations – the forgiveness of our sins. He is torn down, but we are lifted up. He drifts to the dirt, while we spring to new life in Him.

While “the end” of the world brings foreboding to most, our lives are now meant to bear witness to the new life that is in Him and the redemption that awaits us all. Just as we see in Jesus’ death our new life, the forgiveness of our sins, and victory over death in His resurrection, so now we also see how God uses the brokenness of our lives, our daily “end,” to bring forth in us His new life in and around us. Like the temple, our daily death to self will not leave one stone upon another, not to simply bring us to the dust, but so that His glorious new life can be brought into our lives and the lives of all those around us. Yes, as all things come apart, and not one thing is left upon another, this is our opportunity to bear witness to all of His grace and love.

Pastor Carl