“Come to your Temple here with liberation

And overturn these tables of exchange

Restore in me my lost imagination

Begin in me for good, the pure change.”

My “Temple” is filled with unclean things. Distractions, motivations that are impure.

Sin.

Clutter.

My imagination is caught up so often in things that draw me away from God rather than toward Him. I am, frankly, weak and lacking in discipline and in focus. I am in need. I am broken by a sinful nature that does me in, and by an enemy who would rejoice in my defeat.

I need not a soft God who is only love and who demands little. A God who would simply bless me in my choices and my way.

I need a God who demands holiness and who knows true justice. I need a God who will clean this temple, and I, in my lack of imagination, need a God I can “see”.  I need something more than a God of wood or stone that I can gaze upon…I need a God who walks and talks and surprises me.

I need Jesus. I need Jesus who touched lepers with tenderness, who wept at His friend’s death. I need Jesus who knows loneliness and pain and suffering, and yet who knows wonder and imagination and love and joy.

This week I am following the posts of Malcolm Guite, and I am thankful for the poet and the artist and the musicians who bring to life the emotions and the words that fail me. Today his post is about the cleansing of the Temple. This is the God in whom I put my faith and my trust…and my need. The God who is willing and able to act justly and to save and to redeem and to cleanse.

The God who will break the barriers.

Cleansing the Temple

 

 

Come to your Temple here with liberation

And overturn these tables of exchange

Restore in me my lost imagination

Begin in me for good, the pure change.

Come as you came, an infant with your mother,

That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground

Come as you came, a boy who sought his father

With questions asked and certain answers found,

Come as you came this day, a man in anger

Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through

Face down for me the fear the shame the danger

Teach me again to whom my love is due.

Break down in me the barricades of death

And tear the veil in two with your last breath.

 

 

As I was writing this I was thinking of the strength of our God, and I came across Steve Green singing A Mighty Fortress. Put on your headphones and turn this up loudly. This is not a soft God who gives us up to our ways. This is a God who faces down the fear the shame and the danger. This is the God who tears the veil in two.