מִשְׁכָּן

Mishkan- tabernacle, dwelling place, tent

The entire story of the Bible can be summed up with one idea: God desires to dwell with his people. From the opening pages of Genesis, we witness the generous, self-giving love of the Creator who builds a world and all the living things in it and sets humanity to rule over it all as his representatives.

He calls all his creations good. But, humans are the crown of it all, because they are made in God’s very own image. He plants them in the Garden of Eden and walks with them in the cool of the day, feeding them with the Tree of Life and teaching them in love and wisdom. When the humans rebel and seize the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil for themselves, they are tragically exiled from the Garden, and God’s own holy presence.

Despite this tragedy, God never stopped pursuing humanity, even when they wanted anything but him. Eventually, the biblical narrative turns its focus to Abraham and his descendants who were enslaved in Egypt. Somehow, God would use this family as his vehicle of redemption and return humanity back to life in the Garden where Creator and humanity can live together once again.

After rescuing Israel from slavery and leading them to Mount Sinai, the Lord gives instructions to Moses for a mishkan (“dwelling place”) where he would live among the Israelites and forgive their sins. In these instructions described in the book of Exodus, God lays out all of the blueprints for this grand tent, or Tabernacle as we’ve come to know it.

Inside the Tabernacle, and later the Temple in Jerusalem were many symbols pointing back to Eden. The Holy Menorah was made to look like the Tree of Life. The inner sanctuaries were decorated with gold and onyx, the same stones in Eden. The Holy of Holies was guarded by Cherubim, calling back to the Cherubim protecting the Garden from the exiled humans.

The Tabernacle, and the Temple after it, were the real dwelling places of the Lord and spaces where Heaven and Earth were united as one. Simultaneously, the mishkan was a beautiful image of God’s love and desire for humanity and a tragic testament to the separation between the two.

That is until the Word became flesh and dwelt among us as the Gospel of John describes. Jesus was God and human, heaven and earth unified in a living, walking, breathing holy of holies. He was a new kind of mishkan. His body was the atoning sacrifice for sin and his cross was the mercy seat for the whole world. When he died, the curtain dividing humans from the holy of holies in the Temple was torn in two.

Acts 2 showcases this new reality and God’s new and living temple on the Day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit, with rushing wind and tongues of fire, descended on the Apostles, just as God’s divine presence filled the mishkan (Tabernacle), inaugurating this body of believers as his holy of holies on earth as it is in Heaven. Each Christian is a stone of this living Temple and a member of the body of the resurrected Christ. (1 Peter 2:4-5)

And best of all, this reality is just a foretaste, a preamble to the day that the whole earth is God’s Temple, and all of humanity can dwell with God again. The Bible closes with the book of Revelation, one of the most beautiful images in all of scripture. May it give us hope and courage each day and confidence that our Savior is closer than the very air we breathe.

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new." (Revelation 21:1-5)

Questions to Consider:

1. Why would God go to such lengths to dwell with humans who constantly rebel against him?
2. What does it mean to be a “stone of the living temple”? What should my relationship be with other Christians, the other stones of the living temple?
3. What will it look like when God and humanity can completely live together in unity? How can we live with hope and expectation of the New Creation? How can we access glimpses of this future reality now?