Tag: Ezekiel 43

• 2 Chronicles 4: The Altar of Our Lives – Part II

  
  

  Monday, June 28, 2021

  2 Chronicles 4

  The Altar of Our Lives – Part II

  In John’s Gospel yesterday, we saw Jesus constructing the altar of his life, laying the foundation, bringing the supports and lintel from the workshop, designing and carving the decorations, taking care to follow the guidelines laid out by the father. From a Noontime several years ago we contemplated the construction of our New Altar in the New Jerusalem in Ezekiel 43.

  We are the temple. We carry this altar about with us everywhere we go. Christ arrives. Christ brings with him the New Law of The Beatitudes – which fulfills and supersedes the Old Mosaic law – and Christ offers a sacrifice of himself on this altar which we have prepared.

  Summer brings us to our familiar schedule in a new way and we do well to take time to examine the construction of our altar. How many cubits does it measure? Is it tiny and mean, big and overwhelming, appropriate and exact to the measurements God has suggested for us? What about the threshold, the hearth, the ledge and the rim? Have we prepared the decorations? Have we brought along the salt? Have we tried to follow God’s prescription for us? Have we invented an altar of our own? Have we decided what we want to offer or do we bring what God asks of us?

  Summer is a time to consider the altar we have made for our God. What is it like? Whom does it please? What is it for? Do we construct it and then stand back and wait? Or do we eagerly step forward with the gift of self to offer our failures and successes back to the one who sent us forth?

  Summer is a time to consider . . .

  When we read about the Temple altar which we see recreated digitally, what will we say about the work we bring forward to God? What will our construction look like? And will this be a place upon which we wish to burn the holocaust of our lives?

  Summer is a time to consider . . .

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  Adapted from a reflection written on March 27, 2009.

  For more on Solomon’s Temple, click on the image above or go to: https://dwellingintheword.wordpress.com/2011/06/page/2/

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  June 28, 2021

  Ezekiel 43, offerings, the altar of our lives

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• 2 Chronicles 4: The Altar of Our Lives – Part I

  
  

  Sunday, June 27, 2021

  2 Chronicles 4

  The Altar of Our Lives – Part I

  What does it mean to lay our sacrifices upon God’s altar? What good does takes place when we lay our lives upon the Lord’s altar when we see little or no good coming from our sacrifice? Today’s Gospel reading tells us the answers to these questions. We do not need to fully comprehend God’s plan in order to do well in this plan, we only need to follow the one who goes before us. The Christ tells us how to find ourselves in God.

  In John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30 several verses stand out for us.

  Jesus . . . did not wish to travel in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him.

  “I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true”.

  So they tried to arrest him, but no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come.

  In our Noontime journey we have reflected on Ezekiel 43 and the construction of the altar in the New Temple in the New Jerusalem. Today we read about the actual altar built in the temple completed by Solomon in 960 B.C.E. The following sites show us a picture and give us an idea of the enormity of this task.

  http://www.templemount.org/solomon.html

  http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=129&letter=T

  When we think of how much time we spend in building our physical world – the clothes we wear, the house we live in, the food we buy and consume, the car we drive, the acquisitions with which we fill our lives – we see that we invest a great deal of time in what surrounds us.

  When we think of the family we form, the friends we gather, the work colleagues with whom we interact – we can see the importance we place on the people in our lives and the influences we allow ourselves to experience.

  When we think of how much thought we give to the formation of our prayer life, the sincerity with which we enter into our promises, the fashioning of our devotion to God, we can see how much we bring back to God, how much energy and thought we devote to the building of the altar on which we lay our true lives.

  Tomorrow, taking time for a summer reflection.

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  Image from: http://www.templemount.org/solomon.html

  Adapted from a reflection written in March 27, 2009.

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  June 27, 2021

  Ezekiel 43, New Jerusalem, sacrifice, The Temple

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