1 Chronicles 28
It’s always bothered me that Jesus only did his ministry for three years. This is supposed to be the most pivotal event in all human history and the main character is only on stage for three years. Imagine if Steven Spielberg wrote Saving Private Ryan like this. You sit through an hour and a half of war, blood, and drama only to finally rescue Private Ryan and he takes a bullet to the head. Movie credits. It would be terrible! Yet in Gods cosmic movie this is basically what He does. He has two millennia of build-up to this Messiah character and when He finally arrives on set, he is gunned down before any of the real story happens. What the heck God?
Reading 1 Chronicles 28 might give us a small amount of understanding. The scene is this. David is at the end of his life and the pressure of death is leading him to amass supplies needed to build the temple. There are huge quantity of stones, gold, silver, and bronze. The plans are drawn and the builders are ready. David is handing Solomon everything he needs to build the temple. All he has to do it assemble it. The message is clear, this is a big deal and Solomon is going to build it.
How does any of this relate to Jesus? Well before Jesus was the Messiah, He was the prophet. This is how His followers saw Him and how He behaved. This behavior was His main means of communication. A prophet not only tells the word of God, he literally acts out the word of God. Knowing this, it is not hard to understand why Peter quoted psalm 118:22 “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” in describing Jesus. The life Jesus led prepared the way for a new temple. He lived His ministry preaching in the physical temple, but to the prophet Jesus, He was living example showing how the Temple is much, much more. This is why Jesus answered the temple leaders cryptically saying, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days” (John 2:19). Jesus lived all of His life as a live action play communicating God’s will for his people.
(Dad-You took one confusing idea and answered it with another confusing idea. Thanks)
So, let’s look at this. David does all of the work collecting up the resources needed to build the temple. The people are all assembled for him and Solomon can begin doing the work. Jesus likewise does all of the work assembling the people, demonstrating their resources, telling them about this “counselor” who is going to help them. Just as when David teed up Solomon, Christ is teeing up His church. He is not going to do it for them, they are going to do it themselves. He is demonstrating at the end of His short ministry that they are going to build the Temple. They are going to build His Church. They are the place that God will dwell just as He did in Solomon’s temple. To the very end of His life on Earth, Christ lived out the movie scene with a precision that makes you walk away saying, “I get it now”.
It will always bother me that Jesus had such a short time preaching. Nor did He didn’t write anything down. It all just seems so unfair. But He left us all the tools needed to build the kingdom and we get to make our mark on the kingdom. For that I am grateful.
Dad Devotional 