Context No. 2745 of 4322 · 2 Maccabees

2 Maccabees 5:11-20: in context

11Now when news came to the king concerning that which was done, he thought that Judea was in revolt. So, setting out from Egypt in a rage, he took the city by force of weapons, 12and commanded his soldiers to cut down without mercy those who came in their way, and to kill those who went into their houses. 13Then there was killing of young and old, destruction of boys, women, and children, and slaying of virgins and infants. 14In a total of three days, eighty thousand were destroyed, of which forty thousand were slain in close combat, and no fewer were sold into slavery than slain. 15Not content with this, he presumed to enter into the most holy temple of all the earth, having Menelaus for his guide (who had proved himself a traitor both to the laws and to his country), 16even taking the sacred vessels with his polluted hands, and dragging down with his profane hands the offerings that had been dedicated by other kings to enhance the glory and honor of the place. 17Antiochus was lifted up in mind, not seeing that because of the sins of those who lived in the city the Sovereign Lord had been provoked to anger a little while, and therefore his eye was turned away from the place. 18But had it not been so that they were already bound by many sins, this man, even as Heliodorus who was sent by King Seleucus to view the treasury, would, as soon as he came forward, have been scourged and turned back from his daring deed. 19However the Lord didn’t choose the nation for the place’s sake, but the place for the nation’s sake. 20Therefore also the place itself, having shared in the calamities that happened to the nation, did afterward share in its benefits; and the place which was forsaken in the wrath of the Almighty was, at the reconciliation of the great Sovereign, restored again with all glory.

This is a brutal chapter to read. Antiochus, wrongly convinced Judea has revolted, storms Jerusalem, kills tens of thousands over three days, and forces his way into the temple, led by the traitor Menelaus, seizing the sacred vessels with polluted hands. The writer holds nothing back of the horror, and he does not pretend God caused the cruelty.

What he does is refuse despair with one startling claim: the Lord did not choose the nation for the sake of the temple, but the temple for the sake of the nation. The sacred place was left exposed for a season because the people's own sins had turned God's protecting eye aside for a time, and just as the place shared in the nation's calamity, it would later share in its restoration. The building, however holy, was never valued above the people it was built to serve. No desecration gets the last word.

Do I put the building, the institution, the outward holy thing, ahead of the people it was meant to serve?

Sources

2 Maccabees 5:19: "The Lord didn't choose the nation for the place's sake, but the place for the nation's sake."
Mark 2:27: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."
1 Peter 2:5: "You also, as living stones, are built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood."