“Look, teacher, what wonderful stones! Mark 13:1
As Jesus and his disciples are walking in the temple grounds in Jerusalem, one of them says, “Look, teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” For all Jews the temple was the defining center of their religious, cultural, and social identity. For Galileans like the disciples, Herod’s grand structure must have seemed all the more magnificent. Jesus’ countering comment puzzled and probably jarred them, when he said, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” This of course was borne out literally not long afterwards with the Roman destruction of the temple in 70 AD, but the disciples had no way of foreseeing this. It would have seemed impossible to them that something so evidently solid and central to their lives would be so short lived.
In a later private conversation on the Mount of Olives, Peter, James, John, and Andrew ask Jesus, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when all these things are accomplished?” Jesus’ ensuing teaching focuses on the close of the age, the end of the world, but with a clarion call of hope: the Son of Man will come “in clouds with great power and glory.” He will “send out his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.” We thus recall Charles Wesley’s striking second-Advent hymn,
Jesus comes with clouds descending: See the Lamb for sinners slain!
Thousand, thousand saints attending join to sing the glad refrain:
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ the Lord returns to reign!
At the very least this points to Jesus Christ’s sovereign authority and principal role in God’s eternal plans. If there is any permanence to be found, it is not in the grand tonnage of the temple stones, but in his messianic person and work as cornerstone. The locus of divine revelation and human response is no longer to be found on the temple mount or—as the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 thought—on Mt. Gerazim, but in Jesus Christ himself.
The implication for worship is that no building, institution, or location defines the gate of heaven. This is now centered in the incarnate, crucified, risen, ascended, mediating, and advocating Son of God. He is seated “at the right hand” of the Father whose essential nature is spirit. To all who love, trust, and follow him, the gate is open.
Michael Denham
Reverberating Word 