Temple Visit – Take One

Rabbis boasted that those who had not seen the Temple in Jerusalem hadn’t seen a beauty. Around 580 BC, the Babylonians destroyed and burnt the first temple that Solomon had built nearly three centuries earlier. When the exiles returned from Babylon, they began rebuilding the temple (around 444 BC). Almost 400 years later, Herod the Great poured wealth into enlarging and beautifying the temple in Jerusalem to curry favor with the Israelites. By the time Jesus marched into Jerusalem nearly 70 years later, it had become a world wonder. Scholars estimate that the temple was almost the size of thirty-six soccer fields or twenty-nine American football fields. The smallest stone in the basement weighed around 3–5 tons. Its white rocks and marbles would have drawn the visitors’ attention miles ahead. It would have been an amazing site from Mt. Olives, almost unreal.

After the march, Jesus and his twelve disciples entered Jerusalem and into the temple (Mark 11:11a). Like a curious child, he wandered around the temple looking at all those things (periblepo panta) in the temple: the porticoes, pillars, vessels, altars, lampstands, washing pots, priests, and high priests (11:11b). The Gospels record only a few of Jesus’s trips to Jerusalem: once at forty days old, once at twelve years old, and a few times during his ministries. Although the Hebrews wished they could visit Jerusalem often, not many did, especially those in Galilee, as Jesus and his family did. Scholars estimate that nearly a million people from all over the middle east would have visited Jerusalem during Passover festivals. In those busy weeks, many near Jerusalem and Judea would have avoided going to Jerusalem and the temple. Jesus, too, wouldn’t have frequently visited Jerusalem, especially the temple. But this time, he took time to look around. It would be one of his several last times to see that temple with his un-resurrected human eyes. And he knew that within forty years, Rome would destroy that temple. It would perhaps never be rebuilt again.

When evening came, he and his twelve disciples left the temple and Jerusalem and returned to Bethany (11:11c), the hometown of two families: Simon the leper (14:3) and Lazarus-Martha-Mary (John 11:1).* John the baptizer began his ministry near Bethany (John 1:28). Jesus had come a full circle from where he was baptized to where he would die. At baptism and temptation, he was alone. Now, he was with this twelve, but not for too long. They’d soon desert him, and he would be alone on the cross.

I paused on this verse because I was struck by the phrase, “looking at all those things” (periblepo panta). We rush through Jesus’s life to emphasize his atoning work, suffering, salvation, victory, and deity. But we forget his humanity. What would it have been for Jesus to walk into that impressive temple and see altars covered with gold, pots of silver and gold carrying the blood of bulls and goats, tall marble pillars, unquenching fire around the altar, high priests in long white robes with twelve precious stones on their chests representing each tribe, and sacrifices dead on the altar, and the sacrificing priests soaked with the blood of bulls, goats, and lambs? To imagine that he was setting aside all of those by a single death on the cross – “as a payment money (lutron) of his soul” (Mark 10:45b) – would have been overwhelming.

Now, the temple is his people. He still looks around everyone in joy, astonishment, and love.

*Some scholars believe they were the same families.