On the Tuesday before His crucifixion, at the end of an eventful, final day of public ministry in Jerusalem, Jesus delivered a stinging indictment of the scribes and Pharisees. He first addressed the multitude: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees have the authority to tell you what the law of Moses says. So you should obey and follow whatever they tell you, but their lives are not good examples for you to follow...They make strict rules and try to force people to obey them, but they are unwilling to help those who struggle under the weight of their rules. They do good things so that other people will see them...They love people to greet them with respect" (Matthew 23:1-7; NCV).

Jesus then turned to the leaders themselves: "How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You are hypocrites! You close the door for people to enter the kingdom of heaven. You yourselves don't enter, and you stop others who are trying to enter...You travel across land and sea to find one person who will change to your ways. When you find that person, you make him more fit for hell than you are...You guide the people, but you are blind...You don't obey the really important teachings of the law-justice, mercy, and being loyal...You are like a person who picks a fly out of a drink and then swallows a camel!...You are like tombs that are painted white. Outside, those tombs look fine, but inside, they are full of the bones of dead people and all kinds of unclean things. It is the same with you. People look at you and think you are good, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and evil...How are you going to escape God's judgment?" (Matthew 23:13-33; NCV).

Assuming that their own arrogance did not insulate them, Jesus' rebuke must have either enraged or humiliated the religious leaders of his day. Of greater curiosity, however, was the effect Jesus' words had upon His own disciples. They were disconcerted by Jesus' subsequent pronouncement of judgment and of the end of the dispensation within their very lifetimes; they were troubled by Jesus' implication that God would actually withdraw His perceived presence from the Most Holy Place: "Now your house will be left completely empty" (Matthew 23:38). Jesus led His disciples from the Holy City--across the brook Kidron, up the path that traversed the Mount of Olivet--to return to their Bethany retreat. With each step the disciples quietly processed their Master's disturbing words.

As they reached the mountain's peak, the disciples turned for a final look at the splendid city of Jerusalem and its magnificent temple. The temple represented all that the disciples had held dear from the time they were children: faith and family and nation. Oh, they had witnessed the scribes and Pharisees' moral corruption and their tendency to elevate the historical traditions of their fathers above the law of God; the failings of their leaders had, in fact, become increasingly evident as Jesus had transformed the disciples' hearts and lives. Nevertheless, they had a discernible, maudlin sentimentality--and even an intangible sense of identity and security--attached to the temple and its familiar expressions of the law and of the traditions of the fathers. And so, as they gazed longingly upon the revered house of worship--its marble and gold edifices now bathed in the pink hues of the setting sun-the disciples invited Jesus alongside to gaze upon the temple and, perhaps, to give him the opportunity to walk back His harsh words of judgment for the religion it represented. Instead, Jesus replied with a sigh of resignation, "Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, not one stone will be left on another. Every stone will be thrown down to the ground" (Matthew 24:2; NCV).

Two millennia have passed since the Romans fell upon the Holy City in AD 70 and destroyed the temple, fulfilling Jesus' prophetic words. The Christian dispensation, remarkably, is now as ancient as was the Mosaic dispensation in the days of Jesus' earthly ministry. God, having long since abandoned the temple, has dwelt--not in a stone edifice--but within the living stones, the redeemed and transformed men and women, of the church, the body of Christ (Ephesians 2:19-22). And yet, as those first disciples of Jesus identified with the familiar forms of the temple, Jesus' disciples today are similarly drawn to sentimental forms of the church: familiar faces and spaces, crowd-pleasing sermonizing, and fiery denunciations of the disenfranchised. And leaders, like their first-century counterparts, are often invested in preserving their own self-interests and the institutional identity of the church, rather than in replicating the mission of Jesus, which He expressed early in His ministry at a synagogue of Nazareth: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18-19).

If we followed Jesus to the mountaintop today and surveyed the expanse of the temple of God, the church, what would He say? How would He evaluate the character and behavior of those who have assumed the responsibility to lead the body of Christ? What of the members of the body of Christ: would He find men and women merely to be church-goers? Or would He be delighted to discover men and women who are "truly disciples" (John 8:31): living stones whose hearts have welcomed and been transformed by the presence of God; men and women who love God heart, soul, mind and strength and who love their neighbors as themselves? (Mark 12:28-31).

That evening on the mountaintop, as darkness urged them forward, the disciples turned their back to the temple and tradition; they followed Jesus...first to Bethany, then to the cross, and--it is here we may join the journey--on to unimagined opportunities and challenges as disciples of the risen Lord.


What's your perspective from the mountaintop?