Friends
Peace be with you.
One of the regrets I have about my semester in Israel during seminary is that I never walked on the Temple Mount. Today, it’s a Muslim Holy Site now called, in Arabic, the Harem al Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary in English. The two most important buildings located there are the Dome of the Rock, which houses a rock which may have been the altar of sacrifice during the time of Jesus. Muslims point to what appears to be a footprint on the rock and say that it is the launching point for the Prophet Muhuammid right before he shot into heaven. Christians believe they’re actually pointing to chisel marks that we made during the crusades in order to send part of the altar of sacrifice back to as relics for altars but, who knows? The other building on the Noble Sanctuary is the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a large mosque that still welcomes many different groups of Muslims seven times a day to prayer. It is the most important site of Islam within Israel despite the fact that it’s not really all that impressive. It’s roughly the same size and height of Bellevue State Park, just without the trees and vegetation and wildlife. It does have a lot more security and a sound system that can be heard throughout the city of Jerusalem. Yet, I never quite made it up there to see things first-hand. Violence broke out between Israelis and Palestianians and it was seen as unsafe to walk to the Noble Sanctuary. But, just to give you a sense of its height, we were able to overlook it from several places within Jerusalem including the steeples of the Catholic Church of St. Anne, the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, and a number of other not-so spectacularly tall buildings.
Our first reading today, from the book of the Prophet Isaiah, predicts a time when that structure would be the tallest building in the world. It seems a little...exaggerated...especially in an area of the world which actually has mountains. What would cause the Prophet to see this lofty future for such an unremarkable place?
This passage is a poem. I know it might not sound like it in English, but apparently it’s clearly a poem in Hebrew, possibly even a song. The poem is less about high places as it is about what the people at the time would have associated with the Temple. To offer an analogy, imagine if I were to say that someday Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City or the Uni Dome or Jack Trice Stadium in Ames will be seen as a great stadium and everyone will want to stream towards it and say, “Come, let us watch real football and a real football team.” I would tacitly be saying everywhere else is going to be inferior to that stadium and that team. That’s kind of like what Isaiah is really saying in the first reading. Mountains are the dwelling places of the gods. Zeus was on Mount Olympus. Ai, the god of the Samaritans, was housed on Mount Gerizim. Isaiah is saying that all these other gods on other mountains, even ones that tower higher than the Temple Mount, will be dwarfed by the One True God located on his Mount.
This becomes even more clear if we continue reading and hear the results of the Temple being the highest mount: tools of warfare like swords and spears will be able to be repurposed for tools of agricultural production like plowshares and pruning hooks. And, rather than fighting, all people will solve their problems by bringing them to the Temple, where God himself will be their judge.
I think there’s something particularly significant to us, as Christians, in the heart of this reading. As I said before, the Temple was the dwelling place of God, a kind of Sacrament before there were sacraments if you will, the meeting place of God and humanity. In Advent we, likewise, celebrate the meetings of God and humanity, the dwelling place of God, and the origin of all sacraments in the coming of Jesus. He doesn’t come like a Marvel Superhero or a Supermodel or anything the world would consider “super”. He comes as a typical Jewish person, obedient to his Mom and Dad and observant of his religion in every way. Yet, he was lifted above all mountains on the cross and it causes, not just Jews but all people, to stream toward him.
We are invited, as Isaiah so prophetically put it, “that he may instruct us in his ways and we may walk in his paths.” Are we waking time with God each day to be instructed through Scripture and studying the Catechism or watching a Catholic video on the Formed website? Are we utilizing confession to be rid of what weighs us down so we can walk with the Lord? Our Lord invites us to come! Let us walk in the light of the Lord.
