Sermon 5/12/2019 “Solomon’s Porch”
Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection at Immanuel Chapel, Virginia Theological Seminary
Text: John 10:22-30
Day: 4Easter Year C (May 12, 2019)
First, a bit of history: About 170 years before Jesus was born, Antiochus IV made it illegal to worship any god in Israel but the Greek God Zeus. He declared HIMSELF “god manifest,” installing a statue of himself in the Temple in Jerusalem and then he sacrificed a PIG there to Zeus. The people were so outraged that, in a rebellion led by Judas Maccabeus, Antiochus’ troops were driven from the land and the Temple was cleansed and rededicated. This event is remembered in late November or early December each year by a Festival of Dedication known today as Hanukkah.
Now to today’s gospel lesson: Jesus was walking in the portico—the porch—of the Temple, on a day when Jews had for about 200 years been celebrating the day the Temple had been rededicated to God. And here was God-in-the-flesh walking on the Temple’s porch.
Our lesson says this was “Solomon’s Porch.” Solomon had built the porch—a roofed open-sided hall with large columns—when he built the First Temple a thousand years before Christ. Solomon’s Porch had survived the Babylonians’ destruction of the First Temple and Herod the Great’s refurbishment of the Second Temple just before Jesus’ birth. And here was God-in-the-flesh walking on the Temple’s porch. Was this Solomon’s Porch, or God’s Porch?
The porch may have been where Solomon sat in judgment of the cases brought before him. The porch may also have housed his royal armory, given the solid gold shields he reportedly stored there. And here was God-in-the-flesh walking on the Temple’s porch. Everyone wanted the Messiah to be a warrior who made their country great again; hardly anyone wanted the Messiah to be their judge.
But unlike when God walked in the Garden of Eden in the heat of the day, his reception this day was, well, colder. The Festival of Dedication always occurs in winter, so our lesson’s saying, “It was winter” suggests it wasn’t the season of the year being identified. You’ll notice that here was God-in-the-flesh, walking on his porch, and he wasn’t invited inside. His was a cold reception.
The irony: here were the Temple leaders of Jesus’ day, celebrating the roughly 200th anniversary of the Temple’s purification, and they clearly were wondering whether Jesus was another Desolating Sacrilege, as Temple outrages were called, another Messiah Pretender, another so-called “god manifest” a la Antiochus so long ago. “Tell us plainly,” they said, “are you the Messiah?”
We might wonder how the very people who were supposed to be looking for the Messiah failed to identify God-in-the-flesh walking among them. But this is a common problem, a human problem, even today. We let God stroll on OUR porch, let God walk at will on the porch of our lives, but we resist letting God inside, resist letting God rule all, resist giving God the seat of judgment. This is a matter, ultimately, of self-interest, of who or what we put first in our lives, who or what we make our interpretive lens.
Think about THAT a minute: Wouldn’t WE be a desecration to OUR TEMPLE if we couldn’t tell the difference between Christ and pretender? Near the middle of the 20th century, for example, a lot of German Christians thought Adolf Hitler was Christ Jesus returned to Earth—Adolf Hitler: The Second Coming of Christ! We can so easily judge this harshly with the hindsight of history, with the reek of the ovens and the photographs of the evil of the concentration camps still in our memory. But at the time, Adolph Hitler must have fulfilled a lot of German national and person desires to have blinded their judgment so badly.
But let’s not judge the Germans too harshly: I’ve seen a billboard declaring our President the “Word made flesh,” Christ Jesus returned to Earth. HE didn’t put up the billboard, others did. The text also urged our President to “make the gospel great again.” ALTERNATIVELY, I’ve seen signs declaring him to be the Antichrist. Isn’t it interesting we have such difficulty telling these two extremes apart? Always!
Self-interest blinds us to Truth, when we let ourselves be blinded. And then we leave God-in-the-flesh walking on the Temple’s porch, or we invite the wrong Christ inside. Let me be very clear: I’m not talking about your politics. I’m talking about who or what you prioritize in your life.
The people who met Jesus on Solomon’s Porch asked him to tell them plainly whether he was the Messiah. Jesus used his words this time, as we instruct children today. But we, like he, know that actions speak much louder and actions are remembered longer than words. Jesus told those who were judging him that his actions had spoken plainly enough:
- He had healed the lame and restored sight to the blind.
- He had raised the dead.
- He had given life and hope wherever he had gone.
If these leaders knew their scripture—and they did—they should have recognized him. But they hadn’t. In a very real way, their vantage point was getting in the way. They had put themselves in the judgment seat when they should have remained kneeling in front of it. They had taken God’s seat, while the only one entitled to sit on it was still strolling around in their presence, giving them more time to recognize him and invite him in.
On this day, Jesus gave us eternal words to match his eternal actions. He basically says, you can’t reason your way to knowledge of who he is. But you can know in your head and heart by what he’s done, by his actions—not by the actions of others in his name. To distinguish Christ from Christ pretenders, judge by their actions. Once you’ve determined who Christ is, take stock of what Christ Jesus has done for you and for us. But above all, don’t keep him on the porch forever; invite him to the center of your life.
By the way, to end with another bit of history: Solomon’s Porch is where, after Jesus’ Resurrection, Peter and John healed a lame man and preached the gospel. Solomon’s Porch is also where the very first Christians met, selling all they owned and sharing what they had with those among them in need. In a very real way, Jesus’ walk on Solomon’s Porch purified and consecrated the Temple in a new way, just as Christ Jesus’ presence among us at Church of the Resurrection has done the same for us.
