Christmas, the Temple Holiday

Christmas as a Temple Holiday

Review

Three rooms of the temple.  Incense altar, veil, strait and narrow gate, tree-lamp, table of bread, the rock, throne-chariot of God.  Worship of the Shalems is entry (Matthew 5-7, Genesis 14, Exodus 24, Psalms 23, Isaiah 40), covenant making, instruction in prayer and fasting, being led forward by a priest, the Lord-Melchizedek descends, feast of bread and wine followed by the song of JOY (1 Nephi 8:12, Job 38:7, Isaiah 12), worshipper is dressed by the Lord, meeting the Lord at the veil, entry into the Holy of Holies.  “PEACE” or “WORSHIP OF THE PEACEABLE ONES” is the name of the ordinance (Leviticus 7:11), and the Prince of Peace is the Lord who descends to officiate at the feast and dressing (Isaiah 9:6, Alma 13:18, Abraham 1:2).  Holy of Holies is a place of vision (1 Nephi 1, 1 Nephi 8, Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1-2, Daniel 7, John 1 “come and see”). 

The New Testament Nativity narratives are full of the images of this temple worship.

Wise Men (Matthew 2:1-12)

Temple door faces east.  To come FROM THE EAST is to enter into the temple and ascend within it.  Stars and angels are both priests within the temple.  To FOLLOW A STAR is to be led within the temple by a priest (this is the scene of John 1, where John the Baptist leads his disciples forward and introduces Christ).  Magoi are themselves priests of some kind, in particular Persian astrologer-priests who interpret dreams.  The dream-interpreter and temple visionary Daniel was in charge of Babyon’s Magoi (Daniel 2:48).  GOLD covered all the temple furnishings, and the entire Holy of Holies (1 Kings 7); FRANKINCENSE topped the shewbread (Leviticus 24); MYRRH is in the anointing oil (Exodus 30).  The Lord who descended was THE KING (Melchizedek = king of righteousness) who was WORSHIPPED.  In 1 Kings 7, the rooms of the temple are “houses” – in the HOUSE, they FELL DOWN (compare with 1 Nephi 8:30).  BETHLEHEM = house of bread, and the second room of the temple was where worshippers ate the bread of the Lord.  The wise men experience JOY.  A DREAM (vision) warns them.

Shepherds (Luke 2:4-20)

BETHLEHEM again.  Mother DRESSES Jesus; “swaddling” clothes don’t necessarily mean “baby” clothes, they just mean loose clothes you wrap around someone (compare Job 38:9).  Jesus is laid in a phatne, which can mean a “stall,” but is also a “feed trough” (Isaiah 1:3 “crib”) – Jesus is dressed and that makes him FOOD (compare Isaiah 4:1, where the woman provides bread and clothing so that the man can be someone whose name can be taken by others).  SHEPHERDS are also priests (Psalms 23), and so are ANGELS.  These shepherds are faithfully watching their flock, so the shepherds in the field are faithful temple priests being taught by another priest within the temple, priests who waited for the Lord recognizing his arrival (story is the same as Matthew 2 and also John 1).  The babe is a SIGN (semeion), just like the Virgin and her children would be signs (semeia; Isaiah 8:18).  Angel-stars (and shepherds) SING in the temple (Isaiah 6:3, 1 Nephi 1:8-10), which is JOY, the song of the Lord’s coming (Isaiah 12).  PEACE on earth is the arrival of the Peaceable King, the Prince of Peace (Genesis 14, Isaiah 9). 

The folklore and practices of Christmas are also saturated with half-remembered temple images.

Extra-Scriptural Christmas Traditions

TREE OF LIGHT is the temple tree (Exodus 25, 1 Nephi 8).  CANDY CANES are the rod/staff of the Melchizedek priest (Psalms 23, 110, 1 Nephi 8).  GIFTS are the gifts of the magi, gifts brought to the altar (Matthew 5 = tithing of Genesis 14:20, Malachi 3:8-10), and the gifts you receive from the Lord (Matthew 7).  SINGING makes us part of the choir of angels, announcing the arrival of the Lord.  DECEMBER 25 is just after the moment of greatest darkness, and the return of the light (the winter solstice) = opening of the veil and the appearance of the Lord (John 1:5, Isaiah 9:2).  SANTA / FATHER CHRISTMAS is a dressed priestly figure who enters through the light of the house (John 8:12).  He lives at the top of the world and descends through the air to meet us, assisted by elves (1 Nephi 1:8-10) and riding in a SLEIGH (a chariot, like the throne of God in Ezekiel 1:4-28), pulled by eight REINDEER (the four cherubim in Ezekiel 1 have beast features and multiple faces).  JINGLE BELLS are the timbrels used in temple worship (Exodus 15:20, Psalms 149:3).

Sherem v. Jacob

Here's the outline for today's lesson, for those who can't make it.  It further develops some observations I made in prior posts on this blog.

1)    Who is Sherem? (Jacob 7:1-4, 24)

a)     Come from somewhere else

b)    Learned

c)     Preaches and works hard, has success

d)    Counter-missions?

e)     Content of preaching is Law of Moses and no-Christ

2)    What is the controversy?  Sherem attacks temple doctrines and the visionary men.

a)     What is the doctrine of the Christ?

i)      Angels sing before the Lord in the temple

(1)  2 Nephi 16:1-3

(2)  1 Nephi 1:8

(3)  Luke 2:8-14

ii)    Nephi’s doctrine of the Christ in 2 Nephi 31:2, 13-14, 17-18, is:

(1)  Repentance

(2)  Baptism

(3)  Gift of the Holy Ghost

(4)  Speak/sing with the tongues of angels (13-14) = enter in at the strait gate (17-18)

b)    Sherem sought to “overthrow the doctrine of Christ” (7:2).

i)      There should “be no Christ” (7:2).

ii)    The “right way of God” is the “law of Moses” (7:7).

iii)   Worship of a being to come is “blasphemy” (7:7).

iv)   You “cannot tell of things to come” (7:7).

v)     He hates the things of the temple—prophecy and the worship of the Messiah to come—and wants people to just obey the law of Moses.

c)     After Sherem’s defeat, “peace” and “the love of God” were restored. (7:23)

i)      “peace” is a hot-button temple word

(1)  Christ’s coming is “peace on earth”; Luke 2:13-14, “to men of good will”

(2)  But 1 Nephi 20:22 (Isaiah 48), there is no “peace” for the wicked

(3)  Peace offerings

(a)   Leviticus 7:11-36

(i)    zevach hashelamim; “shalem” is “peaceable” or “complete” (cf. Matthew 5:48, teleioi), so this is the “worship of the initiates”;

(ii)  cf. “shalem”, initiate, and “Sherem”, a close but incorrect substitute;

(iii) LXX is thusias soteriou, sacrifices of salvation

(iv) Peace offerings are a feast in the temple, including an eating of bread.

(b)  Exodus 24:9-11

(c)   Psalm 23 (cf. 1 Nephi 8)

(d)  Luke 14 (esp. 14:15); Matthew 22

(4)  Christ and bread / peace

(a)   Christ identifies himself as the “bread” of “heaven” (John 6:30-35)

(b)  Christ identifies himself with the Shewbread offering (Leviticus 24:7, “memorial”; Luke 22:19, “remembrance”)

(c)   Christ says the spirit gives “remembrance”, Christ brings “peace” (John 14:26-27)

(d)  Plays on disciples’ knowledge of him and peace in Matthew 10:34 (Luke 12:51) – not peace, but a sword

(e)   Paul knows this connection: Romans 5:1, Galatians 5:22, Ephesians 2:13-14; also Hebrews 12:11; also James 3:17-18

(5)  “peace” is the fruit

ii)    “love of God” is the tree in the temple (1 Nephi 11:21-22)

d)    Reminiscent of prior conflicts

i)      Josiah’s reformers:

(1)  Margaret Barker: “One way to reconstruct the religion of Jerusalem before Josiah’s changes is to note how many of the practices forbidden by Deuteronomy are permitted elsewhere in the Old Testament.”  What Did King Josiah Reform? in John W. Welch et al. eds., Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, Provo: FARMS, 2004.

(2)  Deuteronomy 4:12, you cannot see God; cf. 1 Nephi 1:8

(3)  Deut 4:19, deprecates “stars” and “host of heaven”; cf. 1 Nephi 1:8-10

(4)  Deut 4:5-6, Torah is Wisdom; cf. Mosiah 2:17, wisdom = temple insight

(5)  Deut 29:24-29, stick to the law, no secret things; cf. 1 Nephi 1:1, “mysteries”

(6)  What do the reformers hate?  Not random things, but the plain and precious things of the temple.  The way Nephi front-loads his account with exactly these things, it’s almost like he’s nailing his flag to the mast, proudly shouting from the rooftops all the things the reformers in Jerusalem hated.

ii)    Laman and Lemuel grumble against visions, are pro-Law of Moses and Jerusalemites (1 Nephi 17:19-22)

3)    How does the confrontation go?

a)     Juridical (cf. Jacob v. Laban in Genesis 31)

b)    Process

i)      Sherem “comes unto” Jacob (7:6).

ii)    Sherem presents his case (7:6-7).

iii)   Jacob responds, calling two witnesses (7:8-12).

iv)   Resolution by ordeal/miracle (7:13-15).

v)    Prompt remedy (7:16-20).