RBWords

     After all the saga of escaping from Egypt and the on-again-off-again-on-again story of establishing the covenant, the Lord decides that Moses and the Israelites needed some visible manifestation of the divine presence on a steady basis.  So, a portable "temple" is designed and, if you're up to it, the design and execution of the various materials are described in detail beginning in chapter 35.  Today's scripture skips over all of that and has Moses putting the whole kit together!  The "Dwelling" served as a focal point for the divine presence in two ways.  First, the Ark of the Covenant was put inside at the end of the day's journeying.  This contained the stone tablets of the ten commandments.  Second, the Dwelling is where the Israelites could see the presence of God in the form of a cloud that went before them from the Dwelling.  At night, the cloud would be fiery and within the Dwelling!  Occasionally I see models of the whole thing (minus the cloud and fire) for sale in magazines like BIBLICAL ARCHAELOGY!

     All of this might seem like ancient history, but we should remember that we Americans have our own civil/secular examples of this in the way we enshrine the copies of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution in Washington, DC!  They supposedly contain the spirit of the nation and its purpose.  The Dwelling for the journey suited the nomadic - pilgrim status of the Israelites at that time.  Eventually it would be replaced by the first Temple, built by Solomon!  We are still building "temples" in which, in a special container called a tabernacle, we place that which is most holy to us:  the body of Christ.  If we think all the descriptions in Chaps 35-40 in Exodus or those describing the temple of Solomon are not worth our attention, then we'd better not ever agree to be on a committee to build a new parish church!!!!!   AMEN