Wednesday: Wanting Three Tabernacles
WEEK 34
WEDNESDAY
WANTING THREE TABERNACLES
Isaiah 58:6-11
We have been studying the mastery of the many things and the giving of oneself to “this one thing.”
Upon the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter suggested that there be built three tabernacles: one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. Moses represented the Law, Elijah the prophets, and Jesus the new revelation. Peter wanted to put them all three on the same level. A cloud came down upon them as he said this. Whenever you try to divide your inner life by competing supreme loyalties, a cloud will descend on you automatically. The divided life is the clouded life.
But this very cloud was cleansing, for from it came a voice, saying, “This is my Son whom I dearly love. . . . Listen to him!” The Law and the prophets were fulfilled in Jesus. “When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus” (Matt 17:5-8).
That outer clarification became an inner clarification when the Spirit came upon them and in them. All else had been pushed to the margin, and Jesus had taken the center; the many were mastered by the One! That was the greatest mastery that had ever taken place in human history. Religion would be centered in the incarnate Jesus. Everything would start from him and return to him for reference. That gave them singleness of purpose and a central drive. They cut through the hesitant many on behalf of the One.
When Paul at Mars Hill spoke of many things—good things but not the Thing—he failed. He left a blur at Athens: no church, no epistle left behind. What an epistle he could have written to that center of learning! But he preached good views instead of good news. When he went to Corinth, he saw his mistake and there “decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2 RSV). There he left a church and two great epistles.
No one can be strong and go far unless that person goes to his or her knees and clarifies purposes and vision. When Jesus fills that person and her or his horizon, then the person begins to go places, for the person knows where he or she wants to go and stops trying to run to opposite goals at once.
O Lord God, send a cloud upon me if my vision is not clear, so that I can emerge from that cloud seeing no one save Jesus only, for he is my universe. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My love for Jesus shall eat up the lesser loyalties, absorb them.