A Reflection On Today’s Scripture readings: Exodus, 3 Kings, and Ezekiel
Three times in Israel’s history, the same pattern manifests. Moses completes the Tabernacle in the wilderness. Solomon finishes the Temple in Jerusalem. Ezekiel sees the restored sanctuary in vision. In each instance, divine glory descends as cloud and fire, filling the sacred space so completely that human beings cannot enter or stand. The priests are driven back. Moses himself cannot cross the threshold. Even in vision, the prophet falls on his face. This is not punishment. It is the overwhelming presence of reality itself—God dwelling with His people, heaven and earth united in a single space.
The pattern begins with preparation. Every detail matters. The Ark positioned correctly. The veil hung. The table and lampstand arranged. The altar of incense set before the Holy of Holies. The anointing oil consecrating vessels and space alike. These are not arbitrary decorations. They form the architecture of encounter—the physical structure that makes it possible for finite human beings to approach infinite divine presence without being consumed. The Tabernacle and Temple do not contain God. They create the conditions under which communion becomes possible. They are thin places, carefully constructed thresholds where the boundary between heaven and earth grows permeable.
When Moses obeys every command, when Solomon brings the Ark into the prepared sanctuary, when Ezekiel sees the vision of restoration, the glory descends. Not as metaphor or symbol, but as actual divine presence so dense, so radiant, that it pushes human beings out. The cloud fills the space. The priests cannot minister. Moses cannot enter. This is the inner work made visible: when you face the truth of who God actually is—not the manageable deity you’ve constructed in your head, but the living reality—you fall on your face. You cannot stand. Everything you thought you could control, every way you’ve been performing rather than being transformed, every part of yourself you’ve kept hidden from divine light, becomes instantly visible. The glory exposes what you’ve been avoiding. You cannot enter that space while pretending. You cannot stand in that presence while performing. The cloud drives you to your knees because anything less than total honesty is incinerated by the truth of what dwells there.
This is cosmic reality manifesting in physical space. The Tabernacle and Temple are not buildings where people gather to think religious thoughts. They are places where heaven and earth touch, where the structure of reality becomes visible, where matter is transfigured by divine presence dwelling within it. The cherubim spread their wings over the Ark, making a throne for the invisible God who sits enthroned on the praises of Israel. The tablets of the covenant rest inside—not as mere stone, but as the physical embodiment of the relationship between God and His people. When glory fills this space, creation itself is being reconciled. The pattern established at Sinai, where Moses could not look on God’s face and live, continues—but now the pattern includes a place where presence dwells permanently. The wilderness wandering is ending. The promise of “I will dwell among them” is being fulfilled. Heaven is coming to earth, and earth is being lifted into heaven, and the point of contact is this consecrated space where every detail reflects the order of divine beauty.
What this reveals about God: He does not remain distant. Divine transcendence does not mean absence. The glory that fills the Tabernacle is the same glory that hovered over Sinai, the same presence that led Israel as pillar of cloud and fire. God descends. He enters. He dwells. This is the fundamental revelation—not a deity who watches from above, but the God who pitches His tent among His people. Yet even in descent, He remains overwhelming. The cloud that fills the sanctuary is mercy. Without it, without the veil, without the careful architecture of approach, the people would be consumed. God reveals Himself as both utterly holy and utterly present. The priests cannot stand, but they are not destroyed. Moses cannot enter, but he stands outside the space where God dwells with Israel. The glory fills the house, and this is what Israel has been created for—to be the people among whom God makes His dwelling, the nation that mediates divine presence to all creation.
In Ezekiel’s vision, after the glory departs because of Israel’s unfaithfulness, the prophet sees restoration. The glory returns. It enters through the eastern gate, the same direction from which the sunrise comes, the same direction from which Eden was entered, the same direction the Shekinah will leave when the Second Temple falls and the same direction from which Christ will return. And when glory enters, the gate is shut. No one else may pass through. This gate belongs to God alone. The prince may sit there, may eat bread in the presence, but he cannot enter the way God entered. The pattern is being established for what will come: God Himself will be the one who opens the way. The veil will be torn. The gate will be opened not by human hands but by God entering human flesh, walking through death itself, and emerging on the other side having made a path where there was none.
This is the ancient pattern the patriarchs knew before there was a Tabernacle, before Solomon built in stone what Moses built in fabric and wood. Abraham saw the Lord at Mamre and built an altar. Jacob slept at Bethel and woke saying, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” These moments of theophany, these encounters with divine presence at specific locations, were always preparation for what Moses builds and Solomon establishes permanently. The Tabernacle formalizes what Eden was—a place where God walks with humanity, where heaven and earth are not separated, where divine glory dwells among creatures made in the divine image. When the cloud fills the sanctuary, this is creation returning to its original purpose. This is the world becoming again what it was always meant to be—charged with the glory of God, shot through with divine presence, matter transfigured by the indwelling of its Creator.
The Incarnation fulfills what these passages prefigure. The Lord enters the world through the eastern gate of the Virgin’s womb, and her body becomes the Tabernacle not made with hands. The glory that filled Moses’ tent and Solomon’s Temple now dwells in human flesh. The veil is torn because Christ’s body becomes the veil, and when that body is broken, the way into the Holy of Holies stands open. Every detail that mattered in the Tabernacle—the careful arrangement, the consecration, the anointing—finds its fulfillment in the God-man who is both priest and sacrifice, both the one who enters and the place where God dwells. Orthodox liturgy continues this pattern. The church building is not merely a meeting hall. It is the new Tabernacle where heaven and earth unite, where the bread and wine become the body and blood, where the congregation enters—carefully, with preparation, through the royal doors—into the presence that Moses could not approach and before which the priests could not stand. The glory that filled the ancient sanctuary fills the church when the Eucharist is celebrated, when the people of God gather as living stones forming the Temple not built by human hands.
The gate remains shut because God has entered through it. No one else can claim that path. But God has opened another way—not around the shut gate, but through His own body. The architecture of encounter remains. Preparation is still required. Consecration still matters. But the veil is torn, the Holy of Holies opened, and those who could not enter now draw near—not because God’s glory has diminished, but because humanity has been transfigured. The glory that drove Moses back now dwells in those who are being transformed into Christ’s image. The presence that made the priests fall now fills the baptized, who are themselves becoming living temples. The pattern that begins in Exodus and continues through Solomon and is restored in Ezekiel’s vision finds completion in the mystery Paul names: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
The Greater Horizon 