Growing into a Temple Sacred to the Lord

Today’s first reading, Ephesians 2: 19-22 reminds us that  we“… no longer strangers or sojourners, but are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.  Through him,” we are told, “ the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him…[we] also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

That Lord is saying:     (your name),  you are no longer a stranger or an alien. You are one of the family and not an ordinary family but the family of God.  Moses spoke to God face to face, had an intimate relationship with the Lord and so, too, did all of the saints that have gone before you.  “I,” the Lord say to you and me, “have an intimate relationship with you and my heart is in anguish until you discover this intimacy, my nearness to you, my love for you and realize that I desire you above all. I gaze upon you every moment of every day with eyes of love.”

You and I, St. Paul tells us, are God’s temple, “built upon the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone…,” the one through whom  “the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord.”  All of us “are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

All of us have, perhaps, visited churches that have taken our breath away because of their beauty. And those buildings are built by human beings!  The Temple that St. Paul is talking about is being built by the Lord. It is being put together as a “dwelling place of God.”  Its beauty will far outshine the beauty of anything built by human hands. And into that Temple, every day or every week, the Son of God, Christ Jesus, says to us through the priest:  “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, happy those called to the Supper of the Lamb” and we respond: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”  Jesus enters our Temple, as He entered the Temple when he was on His way to Jerusalem and cleansed it. In Holy Communion, He does the same for the Temple into which we that we are being built.

I believe,” Lord, “help my unbelief!”