All Three Days, or Just a Few Seconds? - August 16, 2010

Good Monday morning! Are you waiting for a miraculous sign today? We can find ourselves slow to action or even stopped altogether while waiting on some sign from God. The question to ask might be: "Did God promise a sign or did I just ask for one?" Any of us can find an excuse to wait and other times we are told to wait. In either case waiting can be difficult in this time of fast everything. The world seems to rush by us as we stand waiting. A lot of people in the world of today are looking for a little time of waiting. Of course, none of them want the waiting that comes from losing their jobs. What happens if the fear of losing a job is superseded by a greater fear: that of staying in a job that has become a terrible burden?

We often wonder if trusting in God means that we stay and tough it out. However, I would remind you of the way in which God spread the Good News through the persecution of the early church. Believers had to flee for their lives. No doubt many gave up their homes, furniture they couldn't take with them, and yes, even their jobs. If you are called to go to another town or state because your job has become too much for you to bear, go with confidence in a great God. If you must move because of a lost job, trust in God and don't pine for the things you are leaving behind. If you lose a job and are told to stay put... then stay put and trust in God! None of the options may seem easy or even peaceful to us at the time. We still have that urge to trust in our own knowledge and what we think we know. God may want us to set aside human wisdom and trust everything to him alone. We may be in for a surprise when God answers or shows us something that is completely different than anything we expected in our human wisdom.

A bunch of religious leaders got the surprise of their lives when Jesus gave them an answer to their demand for a sign:

"All right," Jesus replied. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." (John 2:19)

At the time, Jesus was standing either in or near the massive temple built by Zerubbabel and remodeled by Herod. The religious leaders probably had no idea how to destroy the Temple in three days, much less have someone rebuild it that quickly. My Bible study notes show that Herod's contractors had been remodeling for 46 years by this time and still had not completed the work. We'll leave alone the union/non-union jokes for today. We get the impression though that this was no small building. Jesus' statement would undoubtedly have stunned the religious leaders. We'll get their reaction in tomorrow's verse. However, when Jesus makes a statement such as this one; you are faced with that same choice - believe in him or call him a liar. Rebuild the temple in three days?

You might imagine a line of trucks with huge pre-fabricated wall sections lined up and ready; an experienced building crew ready to go, and a spot on the temple mount cleared. The crews check their watches and the first truck rolls under the giant cranes to begin the construction of a new temple. Can they assemble the blocks and sections in three days? Perhaps, but that isn't building a temple in three days; not when you take into account the months of construction going on in the factories beforehand. Yes, with the modern methods, factories, and machinery, we might, and that's a big maybe, be able to assemble a temple in three days. Back in Jesus' time, it would have taken hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workers, probably slaves, to even attempt a building of such a monumental building project. Did you realize that much of what we tend to venerate in Rome, Greece, Egypt, and Babylon was built on the blood and sweat of slaves? Jesus didn't have a hundred thousand slaves standing by with precast blocks of stone; all prepared on wagons with horses and oxen ready to move into place. Nope, he stood there in a simple robe with only a few disciples standing behind him. The disciples might even have been sneaking glances at the nearest dark alley to jump into should Jesus start asking them if anyone knew how to build a temple. Had the religious leaders questioned the disciples right then, one or two might have denied our Lord or made a reference to his unstable state of mind. The first disciples faced the same question we do: believe in Jesus or don't.

In Genesis, we can read how God separated the waters beneath the sky so that dry ground appeared; then he created all the plants and told them to produce seeds after their own kind: "And evening passed and morning came, marking the third day." God created the continents by moving the oceans into one place and then created all the plants... in one day. A temple? I would guess that would be about 5 seconds worth of work for God, if he even needed that long! As soon as you choose to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, you have no problem believing that he could raise up one magnificent temple in three days; he created the heavens and the earth in one.

Have a beautiful Monday in Christ Jesus!

Bucky