How long is Forever?

How Long is Forever?

How long is forever?  The time it takes a line of traffic to start moving?  An afternoon class with a boring teacher?  The last five minutes of a tight ballgame?

Forever for the inhabitants of Jerusalem in late 500’s BC it was the burned timbers and scorched rocks of the ruins of the temple. A hundred years before, God’s anger had burned against Jerusalem and the temple as he used the Babylonians to punish and carry into exile unfaithful Israel.  They were the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand, but they had turned aside to feed on weeds instead of the green pastures of his word and blessing.  Their shepherds, the kings, prophets and priests, had become wolves devouring God’s sheep rather than caring and protecting.

 The temple had been destroyed in 587BC.  Seventy years later the remnants of the exiles began to trickle back to Jerusalem.  What they saw was a city and temple completely destroyed. 

The main body of the Introit for the Second Sunday in Lent laments the destruction.  Perhaps even in Babylon psalm 74 was sung on the anniversary of the temple’s destruction.  Verses 1-3 present a dramatic picture.  The psalmist melds two contrasting images, that of the burning anger of God and sheep grazing in a pasture.  “O God, why do you cast us off forever?  Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?”

An image that stays with me is a photograph I saw several years ago on the wall of a restaurant along I-80 in Iowa.  In the foreground, a herd of dairy cows was peacefully grazing.  But in the distant background a tornado funnel was sweeping toward them.  That is the kind of image the psalmist juxtaposes in verse I of the psalm.

 God had been furious with the people; but now it’s time for God to get over it. He challenges God to remember the covenant he had made with the congregation of Israel.  “You said in the time of Moses, ‘You are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession....’  You scattered us in your burning anger, now gather us and care for us like the shepherd you claim to be.  Remember Zion is your home too.”  The psalmist invites God, “direct yourself to these perpetual ruins.”  “Come on take a look at what the enemy has done.  He ‘has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.’    If you want us to properly worship you, then help us rebuild the temple.”

Rebuilding the building was not the long term answer.  The second temple would be totally rebuilt into a tine structure by Herod.  But even that temple was completely destroyed by the Romans in 70AD.

 Jesus applies the first verse of the introit to himself, “for the zeal of your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.” (Ps. 69:9)  He is also the temple that would be destroyed, but with a difference.  He would raise it up again in three days. (John 2:13-22) 

Even though the church building in which we worship may seem like it’s been there forever, it will not last forever.  Forever, is found in the words of Hebrew 12:2, the Gradual verse for Lent, “O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”   That is how long forever is.