August 1, 2021
Hope Lutheran Church
Rev. Mary Erickson
Ephesians 2:11-22
Building Walls into Temples
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
“For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” (Ephesians 2:14)
Paul draws the image of a wall. People are standing on either side of it. The wall is dividing them. Actually, Paul has a very specific wall in mind when he writes this. The wall is located on the temple mount area in Jerusalem.
The temple in Jerusalem was the holiest site in all of Judaism. The further into the temple complex you proceeded, the holier the space got. At the very far end of the temple itself, there was a small alcove. It was called the Holy of Holies. A curtain separated the alcove from the rest of the temple space. Behind that curtain there resided the Ark of the Covenant.
The story of the ark is found in the book of Exodus. When the Israelites had been liberated from their slavery in Egypt, they headed through the wilderness to Mount Sinai. God delivered the ten commandments to Moses on two stone tablets. Those tablets were placed inside the ark.
The tablets had been carved and touched by God. They were extremely holy, so no one was allowed to touch the ark. The priests carried it around with long poles.
The true presence of God resided in the ark. A giant pillar arose from the ark. During the day it looked like a cloud. At night, it became a pillar of fire. When the pillar moved, Israel moved. In that fashion, God led Israel through the wilderness and into the promised land.
That same ark resided within the Holy of Holies inside the temple. The very presence of God filled the space. So not just anyone could enter it. Only the Chief Priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and only once a year after he’d undergone rites of purification. They tied a rope around his waist. That way, if he keeled over, they could pull him out without entering the holy space.
The greater temple area consisted of concentric rings of access.
• At the very center, only the Chief Priest could enter the Holy of Holies
• Only priests could enter the temple building itself
• Jewish men were allowed into the Court of Israel
• But Jewish women could only enter as far as the Court of the Women
• And way on the outside periphery, there was the Court of the Gentiles. That’s as far as the Gentiles were allowed to go.
Between the Court of the Gentiles and the inner area of the temple mount, a wall had been built. Its purpose was to keep the Gentiles out. Jews gained access to the inner court by passing through gates. At each gate a sign was prominently posted. The sign told Gentiles they could go no further. If they dared to enter the inner courtyard, they would be killed on the spot. It was serious business.
This is the wall Paul was talking about. This wall separated Jew from Gentile. Christianity’s roots were in Judaism. Jesus was a Jew; his disciples were all Jews; all of the first followers Christianity were Jews.
But very soon, Gentiles started coming to faith in Jesus. The young church found itself embroiled in controversy: did these Gentile converts have to live like Jews in order to be Christians? Did their men have to become circumcised like a good Jew? Did they have to follow Kosher laws? These Kosher laws were a very detailed set of laws for maintaining proper holiness for Jews. What of these commandments?
Meanwhile, in Ephesus, the vast majority of the Christian community was comprised of Gentile believers. Formerly, they had followed the beliefs of the Greco-Roman religions. They had believed in Zeus and the other gods residing on Mount Olympus.
These Christian Ephesians would have marked their time into before and after: before and after they came to faith in Christ. Before, Paul says, “you were at that time without Christ…you were without hope and without God in the world.” (Ephesians 2:12)
This perfectly described their life before Christ. The Roman gods were fickle and immature. Adherents to the faith spent their lives trying to please the persnickety gods through sacrifices and libations.
And then in the end, they died. They were laid to rest with a coin in their mouth so that they could pay the ferryman to transport them across the fiery river Styx and into the realm of Hades. And there they drifted about as aimless, shadowy figures. That was their end.
“Once you were without hope,” Paul wrote. You live and then you die. No hope there. But now in Christ, they see a different future! How blessed they are now! Now they live with Christ in their lives. They have abundant grace, they have a future of hope!
It’s when you go through trials that you realize how very blessed you are to have faith in Christ Jesus. We know that his presence is as steady and continual with us as the pillar of fire in the wilderness. His spirit goes with us and leads us. We enter trials knowing that he’s with us. And when we face even the end, we know what awaits us. We see the bright future of heaven, where there are no more tears and sorrow but only rejoicing and peace.
“Once you were without hope,” Paul wrote, “but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (Eph. 2:13)
How blessed we are when we are surrounded in the presence of the God who created, redeemed and sustains us! We have hope. We have peace.
Something has happened to the wall that once divided humanity. In his death on the cross, Jesus has brought about a reconciling peace. Not only does it reconcile us with God, it also establishes a peace within our fellowship. This new peace has taken down this wall that divides us into opposing camps.
There are so many walls dividing us. They’ve all been built by our human constructs. They drive a wedge of hostility between us. We regard “the others” with suspicion at best and contempt at worst. We’re so very good at dividing:
• The style of music we like for worship
• Protestant or Catholic
• Vaxxers and anti-vaxxers
• Men versus women versus non-binary
• Democrats or Republicans
• People of European descent and people of color
• Globally speaking, First World or Third World
It’s our second nature, isn’t it, to draw distinctions between us. But as followers of Jesus Christ, we are called into a new future. Can we imagine it? Can we envision a community of fellowship, where the walls separating us are removed? Can we see a world where we reach over the divide with the warm hand of friendship? I hope so. Through our faith in Christ, we can become his ambassadors of peace in a world that divides.
In his commentary on Ephesians, William Barclay tells about an event that took place during World War II. A group of British soldiers lost a comrade during a battle in France. They carried their fallen friend to the nearest Catholic church. They asked the priest if they could bury their friend in the church cemetery.
The priest gently replied that since it was a Roman Catholic cemetery, only Roman Catholics could be buried there. He asked them if they knew if their friend was Catholic. The soldiers replied they didn’t know. The priest told them that he was very sorry, but he couldn’t allow them to bury their comrade in the church cemetery.
So the soldiers did the next best thing. They buried their friend just outside the fence of the cemetery.
The next day the soldiers returned to check on the grave. Much to their surprise, they couldn’t find it. They looked and looked, but there was no evidence of freshly dug soil. They were about to leave when the priest approached them.
The priest said that after they had left, his heart was troubled. All night long he had regretted refusing the burial of their friend in the church cemetery. So early that morning, the priest had gone to the cemetery. And with his own hands he moved the cemetery fence to include the body of this man who had given his life to protect France.
Barclay said, “This is what love can do. The rules and the regulations put up the fence; but love moved it.”
Stone by stone, Christ’s peace can take down the dividing wall of hostility. He sets himself as the cornerstone of a new human community. This cornerstone is founded in his own reconciling love and peace. As we remove the barriers that once divided us, we bring together the pieces that once kept us apart. With Christ as our cornerstone, may we be built into his holy temple.
