Third Sunday in Lent
John 2:13-25
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“LORD, I have loved the habitation of Your house, And the place where Your glory dwells,” the Psalmist wrote. (Psalm 26:8) To confess this is the confess a specificity to the locatedness of the Creator of the Universe. There is a place where God is, a place in His creation. There is a location that you can point to and know that God is there.
To confess as much is also more than an acknowledgment of this locatedness of God, but also an earnest desire for it. “LORD, I have loved the habitation of Your house, And the place where Your glory dwells.” It is to say, “I love that You are among us, O God, that there is a place I can go to to be in Your presence, that there is a refuge where You are where I can approach you to seek respite from this weary world and forgiveness for all of my sins. In this, this place and in the forgiveness of sins, is where your glory dwells.”
And so the Psalmist also wrote, “[Z]eal for Your house has eaten me up.” (Psalm 69:9a) This locatedness of God among man is something to be treasured, to be zealous for. There, in God’s presence is sanctuary and relief. There, in God’s presence is forgiveness and life. And this place was the Temple of YHWH in Jerusalem, the center of all worship for the Hebrews and the Jews who would follow, and the place that would ultimately be summed up and reduced to the flesh and blood of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ. Who would not hold such a place in high esteem?