Rev Gav
How can we have hope for our world?
As Jesus came out of the temple in Jerusalem, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Jesus replied, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
The dimensions for the Temple of Jerusalem were truly staggering. It was 460m long by 315m wide. The walls above ground rose 30 meters (ten stories tall), and their foundations were as deep as 20 meters in some places in order to reach bedrock. Each layer of the wall was recessed about 3 centimetres from the layer beneath it. This was to avoid the optical illusion created that when you look up at a tall, straight object, that it is about to fall over you. Some of the quarried stones used in the Western Wall are so large that, to this day, archaeologists have trouble understanding how they could possibly have been transported with the largest measuring 13.6 meters long, 4.6 meters thick and 3.3 meters high, and an estimated weight of 570 tons.
It is this temple, Herod’s restored second temple, at which the disciples are looking when Jesus talks about its imminent destruction (which took place some forty years later) before using apocalyptic language to describe the end times. The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and God’s plan for redemption for the people of God was a microcosm of the future global world situation in which we now find ourselves.
Did you know that over the past 5000 years the world has known only 292 years of peace? During this period there have been 14,351 wars in which 3.64 billion people have been killed, and yet, war is not what is likely to destroy the world. According to United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, our planet is, “hanging by a thread… We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe… it is time to go into emergency mode or our chance of reaching net zero carbon emissions will itself be zero.”
Where we live, in Bermuda, we are not isolated from the world’s problems. Did you know that if you eat tuna every week from our waters, over a long period of time, you may well get heavy metal poisoning? An estimated 40% of the mercury that eventually finds its way into fish originates with coal-burning power plants and chlorine production plants overseas — and the problem is only getting worse. Did you know that the murder rate in Bermuda is three times that of the United States? And we have wreaked devastating environmental damage to the island: pumping waste into caves, burying or burning our plastic, hunting, poisoning, or using invasive species to drive our endemic and native species to near extinction.
We are heading into a catastrophe of biblical proportions and it appears that many of us are in denial. It is time to wake up and shake up.
I recently tuned into a Christian radio station here in Bermuda and the host said, “God has given us coal as a resource so we should use it and burn it!” If the devil is the destroyer then that which causes the destruction of our planet is, in a word, evil.
Ben Okri, the Nigerian poet and novelist wrote:
“There is a time for hope and there is a time for realism. But what is needed now is beyond hope and realism. This is a time when we ought to dedicate ourselves to bringing about the greatest shift in human consciousness and in the way we live. We ought to consecrate ourselves to bringing about a conscious evolutionary leap forward. No longer can we be the human beings we have been: wasteful, thoughtless, selfish, destructive. It is now time for us to be the most creative we have ever been, the most far-sighted, the most practical, the most conscious and selfless. The stakes have never been, and will never be, higher.
What is called for here is a special kind of love for the world, the love of those who discover the sublime value of life because they are about to lose it. For we are on the verge of losing this most precious and beautiful of worlds, a miracle in all the universe, a home for the evolution of souls, a little paradise here in the richness of space, where we are meant to live and grow and be happy, but which we are day by day turning into a barren stone in space.”
Ben Okri is not a Christian, but when I read his words — words drawn from his rich heritage steeped in philosophical literature — and I look at the church, I cannot help but raise my hand in hope and call out, “Here we are! It is us! We have that special kind of love! We are consecrated to bring about a conscious leap forward!”
Disgraced pastor, Bill Hybels coined the phrase, ‘the local church is the hope for the world’. There is perhaps no sense of irony that he himself fell from public grace, for he, like all of us, is a fallen human being. We must never put people on pedestals, however, his disgrace does not make what he wrote any less true. The local church is the hope for the world, and the answer for our planet lies, not in trusting in governments and global businesses to do the right thing, but in us.
If we go back to that moment when the disciples were looking at the temple and saying, look how large and magnificent it is. Is this not a metaphor for the grandeur of what we have built? Our cities. Our governments. Our military might. Our weapons. Our businesses. Our systems. Our glorious societies. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.” All will be thrown down. Sobering words indeed, however, we have hope as God has provided a global answer to a global problem.
Two thousand years ago God established a different kind of kingdom — a kingdom where God would come and make home in the hearts of every believer. The answer was and is not in politics, governments, businesses, nor military might. The answer is in you and me. The temple was destroyed but God lives on in and through each one of us. Why? Because we can be filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God. We are temples of the Holy Spirit and the good news is that there is not just one of us, but billions of us across the world; thousands of us here in Bermuda, and hundreds of us gathered in our local church communities. Together, we can make a difference in the world.
Yes, the tide of culture is against us. It is much easier to cave and go along with the flow; to trust in governments and global businesses; to trust their promises and buy their products; to turn a blind eye to how we live and have our being. It takes boldness and strength to be a pioneer for social and environmental change, but imagine what our local churches could be; beacons on a hill for a different way of life; a different way of being. The world is at stake and we have everything to play for. God is calling us. Can we hear?
Amen
