Once you are up this hill you will see. Yes, I thought it would take your breath away. It's their Temple, the largest religious complex in the known world, stretching as it does over 35 acres. The recently departed Herod the Great was responsible for the building in its present form, though I'm told it is the third on the site. The first was built by Solomon nine centuries ago and then rebuilt four centuries later after it had been destroyed by the Babylonians. In theory Herod only intended some restoration work, but it was on such a massive scale that it became in effect a quite new construction, and far more splendid than anything that went before. The locals tell me, though, that it was all done to curry favour with the people. Although practising Jews, Herod's grandparents came from elsewhere, from the land of Edom, once one of Israel's great enemies.
Much of this vast square that we are standing in (known as the Court of the Gentiles) Herod built up from the surrounding valleys. Isn't the surrounding portico quite splendid, with its double row of marble columns and flat cedar roof? It's an ideal place to shelter from the heat, and you can see groups in various corners, particularly at the gates, arguing about religion. In fact, it's a favourite gathering point for Jews as well as Gentiles. Ah, here's comes Isaac. What I didn't tell is that this is as far as we can get in our sight-seeing. Everything else we have to view from a distance because we're not Jews. So Isaac here, one of their many priests, will describe things for you.
Thanks Marcus. The next inner courtyard is known as the Court of Women, and that's also as far as they can go, since in our Jewish religion all the rituals are performed by men. So they never get a proper sight of the sacrifices - they would probably faint anyway! But what they can see clearly is our fine Temple choir and orchestra (made up of fifty members), for that performs at all major ceremonies on the steps that lead up to the much narrower area in front of the Temple reserved for male Israelites. Although over 200 feet long, it's so narrow (at only 17 feet) that many laymen, once they've done their tasks, prefer to return to the Court of Women. Still, the advantage of moving on is the clear view it gives of the final courtyard and what the priests are doing there. Admittedly, that's the bit you are probably least interested in, as the ritual isn't much different from what goes on outside your temples back home in Rome. As at home, all the animal sacrifices are conducted outside. We can kill up to 24 animals at a time, and 24 feet is also approximately the height of the main altar. The top of it you can just see there in the distance, as also of course the front of the Temple itself with all its golden spikes jutting up from the flat roof - to help keep the birds away!
Because there is an almost continuous round of sacrifice, some public and some personal, I must admit I sometimes find it a bit of a relief to get inside the Temple itself, and away from the smell of all those carcasses still hanging on the marbles pillars awaiting sacrifice. Inside, you see, not only is it beautifully quiet, there is also always a marvellously fragrant smell of incense, since that's the only offering allowed in there - apart, that is, from one day of the year. You've probably heard about it, Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, the most solemn day in the Jewish year. To understand what happens, you need to know that the interior of the building is divided into two unequal parts, with the smaller part blocked off by a great curtain. Although I am a priest, even I've never seen behind, but we all know what's there, even pagans. Remember the shock the Roman general Pompey got, when he conquered Jerusalem, and decided to have a look. He probably expected something like the 50 foot high statue of Zeus in gold and ivory at Olympia that you may have seen in your recent holiday in Greece. But there is nothing like that there - just an empty throne surrounded by carved angels, and it's that throne that is sprinkled once a year with blood as a token offering for the people's sins. Gentiles often express surprise at such simplicity at the very heart of the building, when in every other temple in the world this is always the finest part. I can give you a simple answer, but you may not like it. Our God is absolutely transcendent and mysterious, not at all like the human form you pagans give your gods.
A long but, I hope, helpful introduction to two points I want to leave with you this morning. The first concerns the Epistle we heard. The Letter to the Hebrews is an extended reflection on the details of the cult we have just heard, but, because that cult is no longer familiar to us today, the central argument of the book is not always easy to grasp. It is that Judaism was essentially a hierarchical religion with graded stages of access to God, whereas what Christ has done is broken through the curtain so that grace can be brought equally to all: not just to all priests, or even all lay Israelites, women no less men, but even to Gentiles as well. Indeed, a new status of sonship has been offered, the possibility of the kind of intimacy Jesus himself enjoyed with his Father. Join with him in his sacrificial life of dedicated commitment to God and to others, and we too can discover the same intimate joy. Even, should suffering arise from that commitment, a way through is promised, as was seen in Jesus' own life with the agony of the cross followed by victory in the resurrection.
But, you may object, if that is the message of Hebrews, why then do we continue to have priests and divide up churches in a similar way to that ancient Temple? It is here that I come to my second point. Certainly, to begin with church buildings were incredibly open and relaxed. If you want to experience what they were once like, visit some of the churches of Rome that have retained the earlier style, such as Santa Sabina or Santa Maria in Cosmedin. But soon the old hierarchies reasserted themselves. I'm sure you are all familiar with medieval churches - and some not so medieval - where the rood screen totally obscures the chancel or high altar. More surprisingly, there are even churches where women were once more assigned an inferior position - denied access not just to the chancel or quire but even to the main body of the church. Such was the case in my former home city of Durham, where a black marble line at the back of the cathedral marks the furthest point beyond which women were not allowed to go. Adopting a false legend about St Cuthbert's hostility to women, the Norman monks imposed this limitation on all women who visited the place. No wonder, then that they turned to other saints for comfort, but that is another story.
By this time Fr. Jonathan may be getting a little worried. Am I about to recommend a mass walkabout to one of the local Presbyterian churches, for here of course many of the old divisions are still retained, with a sharp distinction, for example, between nave and chancel and even steps up to the latter, just as in the Holy of Holies in the long-gone Temple? No, and for a very good reason. The Old Testament, no less than the New, continues to hold legitimate lessons for us. We would all like God in our own likeness. So God had first to induct Israel into the divine otherness and transcendence before the possibility of the closeness revealed in the incarnation could then be disclosed. Only once the nation had been weaned away from the false gods of the surrounding peoples could the incarnation begin to make sense, and not produce fresh distortions in its turn.
So Old and New Covenants have to be held in creative tension, and that is precisely what our liturgy here in All Saints intends. Retaining a priestly elevated section of the church reminds us that God is a great mystery, a strange Other not at all like ourselves. So, yes we walk with confidence as sons and daughters of God up to the altar, but note, when there, we kneel before that great mysterious Other. The curtain may have fallen, but the mystery in the bread and wine remains. The tourists you once were have become pilgrims, Gentiles and strangers now in union with the God who is at once Mystery and Friend.
Sermon by: David Brown