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G. K. Beale writes: John 2:19-21 reports this exchange between Jesus and Jewish leaders: "Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' The Jews then said, 'It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?' But he was speaking of the temple of His body" (NASB). It is important to recognize that the Jews think that he is speaking of the physical temple that he has just cleansed, since the subject of the directly preceding verses is his unusual activity in the temple (2:14-17). The Jews are asking Jesus to adduce a sign to demonstrate his authority in cleansing the temple (2:18). But Jesus is referring to himself as the temple. He will be the end-time temple-builder by raising it up in the form of his body, in line with OT prophecies that predict that the Messiah will build the latter-day temple (again, see 2 Sam. 7:12-14; Zech. 6:12-13). "Temple" in Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 2023, p. 835.
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Come, Lover of my anxious heart, console
Me now; I do not doubt your mighty pow’r To feed the sparrow and to clothe the flow'r In gold that glimmers here and in the whole Of your creation; why then is my soul Left wanting, waiting for some better hour Of blessing? Why this season of such sour And bitter providence? What trials stole, Restore to me--and manifold--by grace; O God who knows my needs, provide before I pray. Do You a higher value place On me than them? Then give from Heaven's store And make the bitter sweet; and leave no trace Of want in me that I might love You more. Consider, LORD, the work that you began
To do in us so many years ago: Is it for naught, to bear no fruit but woe? Was this the end for us, was this the plan Divine that we, with hopes that more than span A decade of your providence, forgo The final fruit, content only to know You more, through barren drought's demand A deeper root possess? But does Your Word Itself not say by fruit our faith is known? Then come encompass this our faith and gird Its tree with fruit; and let the earth be shown The end of faith 'til all the earth has heard The Word, and all its final fruit is borne. So there he lies, no life nor breath; but hurt
Is left to me, to sit and contemplate How could it be? With deeper grief and hate Than I could dare confess with word overt. LORD, I too, humbled to the dust, to dirt My soul does decompose within the Gate, And so 'tis we who do the least, who wait, Who must display Your pow'r over earth: Will he, will I? Can these bones live again? O LORD, You know! O LORD, You only know The way that dirt by Breath becomes a man, So breathe across both heart and humus now With Word overt; let life immortal reign Within the Gate where grief does never grow. The cries of true religion beckon us,
Yet grief and tears cloud all the time with pain That only grows and stays: it does not wane Within the cloudy night obscured. Unless From God's own sovereign hand this were a test To strengthen us, through three-fold trial constrain The flesh, I could not find this dying gain, Nor by the Spirit say His way is best For us. For nowhere else to turn we find, No other way so sure as suff'ring through The pain of widows, orphans; though inclined I am to help some easy way and do The lowly good without the grief of mind And heart, yet grief has made Him lowly, too. O Lord my God, why bother with this prayer
For help, another plea for mercy? Knows It not the way to heaven where my woes Are heard? Or God who hears, do you not care About your slave, your child who offers here His life and love in poem and in prose Upon the penciled page of pain? Propose You not a better way than this to clear My heart from idols, test my being whole, To burn me with the fires that refine, That take my life and wealth and all control Perceived from me? O God who hears, incline Your ear: take not your Spirit from my soul Lest I could not pray this the thousandth time. O LORD, in the trial, let me not waver;
Holder of all things, hold me together; And in my undoing, fasten with mercy That binds me to Jesus my King. O LORD, as I suffer, let me not falter; Maker of all things, make me anew; And through all the myst'ry, work in my sorrow To make me like Jesus my King. O LORD, while I languish, let me not perish; Worker of all things, work for my good; And though I am dying, keep and preserve me Until I see Jesus my King. Death impinging on the present,
Willed, dead set to take its toll On me, recoiled, downward, measured By the days' diminished dole. Every ache a diminution Of the destined plot perceived To be a dead end, darkened, locked With no escape door there contrived. Every decade down a measure, One of six feet, cold, before; Closer now the gloom is gilded 'Neath the crippled curse, a Door. Think, O Soul, whate'er befall thee, Body fallen, locked at last; 'Tis a Door unlocked and opened: Through, the severed soul is passed. After visiting Dad's grave a second time on February 10, 2024
A mercy pours out on my head Now, as I stand before the dead; Though serpentine the mocking cry Upon the day you surely die, The sky is heavier and ready With a mercy stronger, steady, To replenish soul and soil, All the cursed plots to foil Within the garden of the dead; For He will crush the serpent's head, And all the stones within the Gate Will crack, and mercy penetrate. To Caroline
It will not live what does not die; Only the fallen seed will rise; The withered grass and fading flower Know well enough the final hour; And we, My Love, not fallen seed But fallen man and wife, have need Beyond mere food and breath, for dust We are and dust again we must Become one day, and so I say Do not despise the flower's way; For there within its dying gloom It plants a garden in a tomb Of earth, and so by fading fast Gives way to beauty that will last And grow, like knowledge of the LORD Within the world–a love outpoured By Him who faced a final hour And made His life a fading flower. And so I give these flowers cut– What God may bring, I know not what, For us before our final fall; But this I know, I will with all My fading strength and strengthened love (Made stronger in the Light above) Hold on to you until we lie Like seeds in soil, seeds that die, So light can call them to the sky. |
writer
Michael Price - I am a husband, father, poet, and science teacher at a classical Christian school in Memphis, TN. I have three volumes of poetry. 
New book available now!
Dissent with Modification: Poems Against COVIDism, Darwinism, and Wokeism 
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