TEMPLES

Gayle Curry

We are four, sitting on the floor of a multi-purpose room at my church. There are others, pockets, groups, couples—heads bowed, shoulders bent, the posture of repentance and so we do this too. The air-conditioning vent is above us so we are close, shoulder touching shoulder, hand on leg, needing one another for warmth and because repentance is personal but corporate too.

Weed out the restlessness, I pray, because adventure is my drug and discontent my great sin. Bring the cross near, I pray, because I forget that life with Christ is an adventure. Tether me to the Holy Spirit, because that is my help, my hold. 

Before His death, He entered a temple and overturned the tables and this is the picture I have of God in flesh when I sin. This temple, this tent in which I abide is a haven for sin. It is sneaky and overt, setting up tables, selling sacrifices that keep me returning to the law again and again. Oh, wretched man of death that I am. Dying inside. On purpose. With intent. 

But it is the Jesus that follows that I still struggle so much to know. He, God in flesh, sitting in the disastrous temple, but now he is gentle, teaching, righting what was wrong, setting straight that which was dismantled. 

Making new. 

My sin robs me raw and I know my sin. Oh, how I know it. I know it more than I know anything else in this life. 

But God. 

But. God. 

This week is the most potent of our weeks, we who are walking, living, breathing temples. The cross is so deep and so near to us this week. God incarnate, brought low. Our sin, disposed to the evil one. Christ, raised after three days. Disciples, those who believe and who still struggle so much to believe. 

But God.