Symbols of Faith: The Altar

Matthew 1:1-12; Isaiah 60

January 6, 2013

The Third Canticle of Isaiah is one of my favorite portions of scripture.  I became familiar with it when I participated in daily Morning Prayer with the Episcopalians at Duke.  The Book of Common Prayer suggests that it be read every Wednesday morning.  And while I was at Duke we took to chanting the whole prayer service on Wednesdays, which tattooed the verses in my heart.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.
For behold, darkness covers the land; deep gloom enshrouds the peoples.
But over you the Lord will rise, and his glory will appear upon you.
Nations will stream to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawning.

The images of Isaiah 60 are inspiring, they engender hope and excitement of what the Lord is about to do.

Nations stream to your light – kings to the brightness of your dawning. Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms.  Then you shall see and be radiant, your heart shall thrill and rejoice, because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.  They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord. All the flocks...and rams…shall be acceptable on my altar and I will glorify my glorious house.”

My altar, my glorious house…what Isaiah is talking about here is the Temple – the one and only Temple of Israel in the capital city of Jerusalem.  From the time of King David son Solomon the center of Jewish worship was located in the Temple. A grand and glorious place of worship built with an open courtyard called the Sanctuary or holy place, and an inner room called the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant was kept.  From the time of the Exodus the Israelites had considered this the most holy epicenter of the presence of God. The altar was in the sanctuary and was used for making sacrifices to God, which were the primary worship rituals for the Jews.

There were different kinds of sacrifice, but most of them involved burning.  The altar was a place of fire, a kind of holy barbeque. The people who were trained to tend this fire and oversee that the sacrifice was done properly were the priests – that was their main job.  And most of the time the sacrifice involved burning whole animals.  A lamb was sacrificed on the high altar every day, and on the Sabbath the High Priest offered a second lamb and cereal offerings as well.  Libations of blood and wine were also poured on the altar by the high priest as sacrifice. We can hardly imagine such a practice in this sanctuary on our altar.

Looking at Leviticus 5 we can see that the purpose of making sacrifice on an altar was to remove sin, even unintentional offenses to God. The animal sacrificed was killed as a substitute for the human transgressor who otherwise could have died. The offerer laid his hand on the head of the victim in order to identify himself with it (Lev. 1: 4) and offer himself to God.  The Israelites believed that the pungent smell of these burning animals and grains, was pleasing to God, this was the original incense.  This was the process by which sin was forgiven and guilt removed. 

There are some portions of the Old Testament that critique this practice of burning offerings on the altar, particularly if it is not accompanied by a suitable change of behavior on the part of the sinner.  Psalm 40 says, “Burnt offering and sin-offering you have not required, and so I said, “Behold, I come.” In the roll of the book it is written concerning me; “I love to do your will, O my God; your law is deep in my heart.”  In Psalm 50 God says “I will take no bull-calf from your stalls, nor he-goats out of your pens…If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the whole world is mine and all that is in it….Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and make good your vows to the Most High…Whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me; but to those who keep in my way will I show the salvation of God.”

But it is important for Christians to know and understand what the temple and the altar meant to the people of Israel if we want to understand both the Old and New Testaments.  What Isaiah is prophesying in chapter 60 is that the Temple in Jerusalem will be like a magnet, drawing everyone to it.  Not only will the Jews in exile return, the sons from far away and the daughters carried on their nurses arms, but all the peoples, the Gentiles, those who were not part of the original covenant between God and Abraham, they too would stream to the light of the Lord in the Temple in Jerusalem.  They will come to worship the Lord; they will come bringing gifts. Even the descendants of “those who oppressed Israel” – the Babylonians and Assyrians and Egyptians – will come to the Temple, the place where sins are forgiven bending low, bowing down to the Lord’s feet in worship.

This prophecy is fitting for Epiphany because Matthew makes it clear that he sees Isaiah’s words being fulfilled in the visit of the wise men to the baby Jesus.   The wise men were gentles, astronomers who read the skies and were attracted to Jesus by the light of a great star.  And they came to worship, to pay homage to the child born king of the Jews. They came with the gifts of gold and frankincense mentioned in Isaiah 60.  When they found their destination they were overwhelmed with joy – the same feeling of joy that Isaiah 60 engenders.  They were in the right place!  They had arrived at the right time! And they went inside the house, knelt down before the child and Mary and worshipped some more.

But though Matthew is claiming that Isaiah’s prophecy is being fulfilled, he is also subtly showing that with the coming of Christ some things have changed there is something new going on.

For one thing the Magi did not find the baby Christ in the Holy of Holies, in the Temple, or even in Jerusalem.  He was in Bethlehem, nine miles away from the Temple.  The locus of worship for Christians is no longer the Temple in Jerusalem.  With the coming of Christ our focus has shifted to him.  Worship happens whenever we truly recognize that Christ is in our midst.

Another noticeable difference is the list of gifts.  While gold and frankincense are presented to the Temple in Isaiah 60 and to the Christ child in Matthew, the magi bring a third gift of myrrh.  As explained in the fourth verse of We Three Kings, myrrh represents the death that Christ would suffer, “sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, seal in a stone cold tomb.” In all the hopes Old Testament hopes for the restoration of the Temple and the return of an anointed descendant of King David to rule over Jerusalem, there was no thought that this Messiah would be killed.  He would be king of kings and lord of lords forever. 

The most novel claims of the New Testament are that Jesus Christ the Messiah is human and God, and that in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross God died.  As the early Christians pondered the vast implication of Christ dying they began to see he was like a sacrificial lamb, slain for the sins of the whole world – Jew and Gentile alike.  The historical event of Christ dying on the cross happened once and for all, and need never be repeated.  From this perspective altars are no longer necessary at all.  In face the whole Temple institution was considered obsolete. Though Jesus was circumcised in the Temple when he was eight days old, Christians replaced that right of initiation with baptism.  Laying on of hands no longer was used for sacrifice, but became associated with special commissions for ministry to the world.  Above all, a new form of sacramental worship developed with bread and wine to commemorate the sacrifice of Jesus and anticipate the joyous banquet when Christ will return and complete his work of salvation.

            So the earliest churches had no altars, and no special buildings for worship.  They were small groups of Christians gathered in homes and catacombs to share communion, the real presence of Christ in their midst, accompanied by prophesy, reading, singing and prayers in joy and thanksgiving.  As Christianity spread and became sanctioned by the Roman Empire church buildings were developed, and the architects turned to scripture, including descriptions of the Jerusalem Temple for their design, altars reappeared.  But still they were never used for bloody sacrifices and burnt offerings.  Instead Christian altars were used as the table to celebrate communion – the only offerings placed on the altar were the bread and wine.  Candles were often placed on the table to help the priests read the words of communion in the murky sanctuary.  The symbolic meaning of the light of Christ for altar candles did not fully replace this first practical purpose until the invention of electric lights. The only book on the altar was the one containing the thanksgiving prayer over the communion.

            During the Reformation many Protestants removed the altars from their churches.  They were concerned that the way Communion was practiced was leading the people to think that Christ was literally being sacrificed, day after day, in every Mass.  So they got rid of their altars, brought in communion tables and rewrote the communion service to help the people understand that they were remembering Christ and that the bread and wine were not magic items, but symbolic of his presence with us.

            This congregation of Methodists in South Walpole used such a table in its early days. But slowly things change over time.  Someone decided to add an altar, and they decided to put the candles on it, and then cross over it.  Then it became fashionable to put flowers on the altar. And then someone decided that putting a bible on the altar would be the thing to do.  All of these items obscure the original symbolism and meaning of an altar in worship – a place of sacrifice.  And for Christians that place is meant to remain empty to remind us that the sacrifice was done once and for all in the death of Jesus Christ, or it can have the communion elements which remind us of the same thing.

            And here we come to the crux of this sermon on Epiphany – the time when Jesus is revealed as not only a baby in a manger, not only a wise teacher, but as the Messiah, the Christ, Emmanuel, God here with us now.  What are we looking at when we come to worship?  Are they things that attract the eye, remind us of loved ones, draw our attention in so many different directions that we hardly notice that Christ is present?  Or are we like the magi, looking for Christ because what we have seen, the bright light of Christ, the baptismal waters, the bread and the cup all giving us hope that he is here and we want to see for ourselves?  When we come to worship what do we want to hear?  Some old entertaining stories peppered with a few jokes, or the living word of God ringing loud and clear to be imbedded in our hearts?  When we come to worship what do we bring with us?  Do we really believe that our gifts, our modest offerings belong on God’s altar of sacrifice?  Or are they gifts, like those of the wise men, who were overwhelmed when they found the living Christ, stopped first to offer their sacrifices of prayer and praise in worship and then offered their gifts to be used for whatever purpose Christ wants to use them?

When we share the bread and the cup this morning we will listen to a contemporary praise song by Chris Tomlin that is fitting of the Magi, fitting of the kind of worship God wants from us, fitting of Epiphany.

Light of the world you stepped down into darkness

Opened my eyes, let me see

Beauty that made this heart adore you

Hope of a life spent with you

So here I am to worship

Here I am to bow down

Here I am to say that you’re my God

You’re altogether lovely

Altogether worthy

Altogether wonderful to me

King of all days, Oh so highly exalted

Glorious in heaven above

Humbly you came to the earth you created

All for love’s sake became poor.

Or as Christian Rosetti put it in the next hymn (In the Bleak Midwinter), the only offering Christ wants on his altar is the gift of our hearts.