When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”
God made us with the ability to create and to appreciate things of beauty. But sometimes we can value things like physical appearance more than we should. By God’s grace, we need to learn to value things that really matter, things that will last. As you follow Jesus in this season of Lent, may you take time to examine your values and priorities? By God’s grace, may you learn to care most about the things that matter most?
As Jesus was teaching in the temple during the last days of his life, he heard some people praising the physical beauty of the building, “how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God” (Luke 21:5). In response, Jesus said, “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down” (Luke 21:6). In retrospect, we know that this very thing happened in A.D. 70 when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the temple. (Today, in Jerusalem, some of the stones from the temple are still in the place they landed when they were thrown down by the Roman army.)
It’s easy to delight in and praise things of beauty. God made us with the ability to perceive beauty and to produce it. So there’s nothing wrong with taking joy in the physical beauty of a well-designed building. But we can go wrong if we pay so much attention to things like physical appearances that we fail to value things that will last forever.
I can understand the temptation to value things that won’t last.
You don’t have to be a pastor to wrestle with valuing what really matters in life. You may, for example, have labored hard to make your home a place of architectural beauty. That’s great. But I expect you know that a gorgeous home is worth very little compared to a healthy, loving family living in it. We can live for so many things that, in the end, are like stones cast down: fame, fortune, popularity, physical appearance, and so forth. Yet, how much do we care about the things that really matter? Things like loving God and others, offering our lives in worship to God through everything we do, using our gifts to help the world be fruitful, seeking God’s justice for the oppressed and vulnerable, adding to the beauty of the world in a way that glorifies God, bearing witness to the good news of God’s grace in Christ, helping the body of Christ to be healthy and growing, etc.
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