Psalm 102; 1 Maccabees 4:36-59; Revelation 22:6-13; Matthew 18:10-20
Now the battle is won, what to do next? The first and only order of business is to restore the temple. Antiochus Epiphanes had defiled the temple in every way possible and then stripped it bare and during his interregnum had ignored the temple entirely, allowing it to go to seed. The depth of the sorrow and pain of those who now return to Jerusalem is great when they see the house of God. The burnt altar has been defiled by unlawful sacrifice so they remove it completely in the belief that it cannot be restored to its intended use because of the defiling. There is no procedure given in the Law for cleansing it. They do as the original builders were instructed in choosing unhewn stones to rebuild the altar. Once everything is back in order they celebrate and re-consecrate the temple, instituting a new festival in the Jewish calendar, Hanukkah.
Restoration is the goal. In the first part of the lesson we see the shepherd with a lost sheep and his only goal is to restore it to the flock. The whole is diminished by the loss of the one and all his efforts are for the one until it is restored and then he celebrates. John Donne wrote the words “"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a Promontory were, as well as if a Manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee...." As I write this blog it is Veteran’s Day and I began the day with the poem In Flanders Fields. This first part of the Gospel lesson is a reminder that church discipline as seen in the second part of the lesson, must have at its heart and as its goal the eventual restoration of fellowship based in truth, repentance and forgiveness. We see in those words the way that our own forgiveness with the Lord works, agreement with Him concerning what we have done, repentance, forgiveness and restoration. It all begins though with the desire to restore the sinner.
In Jesus’ return we see the restoration of all things. He will return all things to the way they were intended to be and all who believe will be restored to full fellowship with their creator, all things will once again be “good.” All these lessons speaks of restoration and in this life we cannot begin to know what “good” truly means because we have only seen that which was good and is now fallen and, from heaven’s perspective, anything but good. We should long for the day that Jesus returns to restore things to their intended glory. Do we weep and mourn as Judas Maccabeus and the others did at the state of things or have we lowered our sights and failed to see things as the Lord sees them?
Easter triumph, Easter joy,
sin alone can this destroy;
from sin's power do thou set free
souls newborn, O Lord, in thee.
Hymns of glory and of praise,
Risen Lord, to thee we raise;
Holy Father, praise to thee,
with the Spirit, ever be.
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