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Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God\u2019s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. \xa0In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. \xa0And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

The Temple in the Old Testament was the place where earth and heaven met. \xa0It was the place where God caused his name to dwell. \xa0It was the tangible place where God was present, on earth with his people.

Paul has just finished telling us how Jesus, in his cross, has abolished all the dividing walls of hostility that divided Israel from everyone else in the world. \xa0There were inner and outer courts that separated Israel from the nations. \xa0But no more. \xa0There was an inner veil that separated the presence of God from his people. \xa0But no more. \xa0All these dividing walls have been torn up and torn down in the cross of Christ.

Jesus himself came as that place where heaven and earth meet. \xa0God became man, took on flesh, dwelt among us. \xa0In his cross, the temple was torn down. \xa0In the three days leading up to his resurrection it was rebuilt. \xa0And in the gift of the Spirit\u2014that temple exploded out into the world such that wherever two or three gather in the name of Jesus, God is there with them. \xa0

Now the Spirit continually gathers people together in gatherings we call the church\u2014building them up into incarnations of God\u2019s temple. \xa0They become little houses of prayer and worship where heaven and earth meet as the prayer \u201con earth as it is in heaven\u201d is prayed. \xa0

To understand ourselves\u2014together in faith as a church\u2014under this image of the temple has a few implications. \xa0

Firstly, the temple is the place where worship happens. \xa0It is the place where we hear God speak, and where we speak with him in prayer and songs. \xa0It is the place where we receive nourishment in word and sacrament for our faith. \xa0It is the place where we surrender ourselves and our offerings. \xa0It is the place of confession and assurance where the covenant is regularly renewed. \xa0Worship happens in the temple that we, together as the church, are.

Secondly, and more specifically, the temple is the place where prayers of intercession are offered on behalf of one another and on behalf of the world. \xa0We together are priests\u2014continually bringing the needs and hurts of this world before the God who is present among and within us, gathered as his temple. \xa0

Thirdly, we can do this work of worship and intercession because the temple is the place where God dwells. \xa0Coming together, in faith, as the church comes with this promise that through the Spirit\u2014God is indeed Immanuel\u2014with us. \xa0He lives in our community. \xa0He is present in our worship. \xa0He hears our prayers of intercession. \xa0We not only have direct access to the Father\u2014we commune with him in our conversation of worship and our sharing of the meal. \xa0Thanks be to God!

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