Judas decides that the city and the temple and the nation,
even the apostate who have made common cause with Antiochus, are worth fighting
for. They are still his people, the
nation God loves, and as such he will not abandon them in their hour of
need. The congregation gathered for
battle and for prayer, both/and not either/or, just as in the days of Nehemiah
as they rebuilt the wall with one hand and kept the other hand on the sword in
preparation for battle and prayed together for God's protection. The reference to the nazirites whose time was
completed is that the particular vow of these consecrated ones was generally
for a time, like a fast, and at the end of that time they went up to the temple
to make offering that they had been able to fulfill their vow with the help of
God. They were unable to do so at this
time because of the invasion and the cry was that they were unable to
completely fulfill their vow due to these circumstances. Judas' faith was great enough to go into
battle but his faith wasn't in his forces numbers, it was in the one who is sovereign
over all things.
As they enter the town of Capernaum, near the Sea of
Galilee, Peter's home area, Peter is approached by a synagogue ruler to
determine if Jesus pays the temple tax. Peter
immediately responds in the affirmative and it seems evident that such is not
the case based on Jesus' words and actions.
The tax was for the upkeep of the temple and was paid as a price of
admission on an annual basis. Was it
because of Jesus' apparent disdain for the temple, the many words He spoke
against the temple and the leaders, that this question was asked of Peter? Jesus' response was to ask whether kings take
taxes from their own sons or from others and the obvious response was,
"from others." Jesus clearly
claims here to be the son of the living God whose temple this is. Nevertheless, part of his coming to earth was
to lay aside those claims to equality in order to fully identify with us, like
submitting to baptism, this was another of the actions necessary to fulfill
that righteous act of identification. How
must Peter, the fisherman who cast nets and caught many fish, have felt going
to the shore with a hook, watched by his former colleagues, humbly casting that
hook into the water? Amazingly, when he
pulled out the fish, it contained what was necessary to pay the tax for them.
One of the seven angels who had one of the bowls of the last
seven plagues calls John to see something, the bride of the Lamb. What does He see? The new city of Jerusalem, the heavenly one
come down. Its beauty is unimaginable to
us but it is seemingly a fragile beauty, one of precious jewels for foundations
and walls, a single pearl for each gate.
This city is one that is constructed not for fortification and protection
but for one single purpose, to display the glory and the radiance of God. There are twelve angels on its walls, on its
gates are written the names of the twelve tribes and on its foundation stones
the names of the apostles. No city on
earth has ever existed that is remotely like this new Jerusalem. The church is intended to be this radiant on
earth. What keeps us from it?
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