The Feast of Tabernacles was, then, at least in part, a reminder of the transience of life, a theme which, throughout the ages, has provided plentiful material for philosophers and poets of all faiths and none. The Tabernacle, however, is central and specific to the Judaeo-Christian revelation. A tent is a symbol of transience, and the first of several paradoxes associated with the Tabernacle is that the eternal God should choose to live in such temporary accommodation. But a tent is also a mobile home. God’s people were on the move in the wilderness, and it is an amazing testimony to God’s love that he wanted to dwell among his people, and was willing to live in a tent to do so. He tells us this himself. When David was firmly established as king in Jerusalem, he wanted to build a temple for God, a permanent dwelling to replace the Tabernacle. He consulted Nathan the prophet, who brought back this word from the Lord: “Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling” (2 Sam 7.5-6). A literal translation of the LXX here is “I was a peripatetic in a lodging and a tent”. The word for ‘lodging’ (kataluma’) occurs 3 times in the NT, at the beginning and end of Jesus’ life. It is the word usually translated ‘inn’ in Luke 2.7, which had “no room” for Jesus at his birth, and it describes the borrowed room, or ‘lodging’, where the last supper was held (Mark 14.4, Luke 22.11). We will look at John’s account of the incarnation later, but it is worth noting here that the ‘kataluma’ borrowed by Jesus for the last supper, the ‘upper room’, became the meeting-place for the early church; one could almost say that the church met in a tabernacle, and on the Day of Pentecost God filled this tabernacle with the glory of his presence through his Holy Spirit, just as he filled the Tabernacle at Sinai with his glory. But there was one crucial difference – the cross!
Sunday, 18 December 2011
SKENE 5: the Tabernacle
The Feast of Tabernacles was, then, at least in part, a reminder of the transience of life, a theme which, throughout the ages, has provided plentiful material for philosophers and poets of all faiths and none. The Tabernacle, however, is central and specific to the Judaeo-Christian revelation. A tent is a symbol of transience, and the first of several paradoxes associated with the Tabernacle is that the eternal God should choose to live in such temporary accommodation. But a tent is also a mobile home. God’s people were on the move in the wilderness, and it is an amazing testimony to God’s love that he wanted to dwell among his people, and was willing to live in a tent to do so. He tells us this himself. When David was firmly established as king in Jerusalem, he wanted to build a temple for God, a permanent dwelling to replace the Tabernacle. He consulted Nathan the prophet, who brought back this word from the Lord: “Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling” (2 Sam 7.5-6). A literal translation of the LXX here is “I was a peripatetic in a lodging and a tent”. The word for ‘lodging’ (kataluma’) occurs 3 times in the NT, at the beginning and end of Jesus’ life. It is the word usually translated ‘inn’ in Luke 2.7, which had “no room” for Jesus at his birth, and it describes the borrowed room, or ‘lodging’, where the last supper was held (Mark 14.4, Luke 22.11). We will look at John’s account of the incarnation later, but it is worth noting here that the ‘kataluma’ borrowed by Jesus for the last supper, the ‘upper room’, became the meeting-place for the early church; one could almost say that the church met in a tabernacle, and on the Day of Pentecost God filled this tabernacle with the glory of his presence through his Holy Spirit, just as he filled the Tabernacle at Sinai with his glory. But there was one crucial difference – the cross!
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