Mark Dawes, Staff Reporter
ONE OF the most awesome features of ancient Israel was its worship practices as exemplified in the sacrifices made in the Tabernacle.
Since February 2, Messiah's Mansion, a Christian group from California in the United States, has set up a full-scale model of the Tabernacle at the Police Officers Club in St. Andrew.
The exhibition will continue until tomorrow. Then it moves to the Mandeville campus of Northern Caribbean University where it will be on show from February 18-27. Its final stop will be in Montego Bay where it will be hosted on the grounds of the West Jamaica Conference of Seventh-day Adventists offices in Mount Salem. In Montego Bay, the exhibition will run from March 11-19
The Messiah's Mansion team is in Jamaica largely through the influence of Earle Simpson of the Braeton Seventh-day Adventist Church and his team of investors known as the Kiyyor Group.
Head of Messiah's Mansion, Clayton Leinneweber, explained the purpose for the model Tabernacle's presence in Jamaica at this time.
"We are in Jamaica with a full scale model of the Mosaic Sanctuary or the Tabernacle. It is the size that it would have been if you were alive in the days of the children of Israel. We are here to share the historical part of the sanctuary to let people see what it actually looked like and share with them how that applies to them today by looking at ourselves as a temple."
The origins of the Tabernacle are recorded in Exodus 25-31. There God told Moses: "And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them". (Exodus 25:8).
STRUCTURE OF
THE TABERNACLE
Mr Leinneweber gave the following overview of the structure the Tabernacle.
"The actual courtyard is 75 feet wide and 150 feet long. It is bordered by a white curtain that surrounds the actual structure of the sanctuary. On entering the courtyard, one will see the Altar of Sacrifice (or the Burnt Offering Altar) first, and then the Laver. Then, one sees the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. The Holy Place and the Most Holy Place together are 45 feet long and 15 feet high, 15 feet wide.
"In the Holy Place are three pieces of furniture. On the north is the Table of Shewbread, on the south are the Seven Golden Candlesticks, and right before the Veil which separates the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place is the Altar of Incense. On the other side of the Veil, the Most Holy Place, one would find there the Ark of the Covenant."
The typical tour of the model Tabernacle, Mr. Leinneweber said, takes about one hour and 15 minutes. Tours are staggered to begin on or about every 15 minutes.
The tour begins when persons are taken to a tent and given a general overview of the place of the Tabernacle in Israel's life.
Then, the visitors are taken to the courtyard of the Tabernacle where they encounter the Burnt Offering Altar and the Laver.
Afterwards, they move alongside the Holy Place. For Holy Place and the Most Holy Place sections of the wall have been removed to allow for easy viewing. The significance of each piece of furniture and fixture is explained on each stop of the tour.
After leaving the Most Holy Place, the visitors are taken into another tent where they are able to view a mannequin wearing the garments of the high priest. The tour guide explains the significance of each component of the high priest's regalia.
On finishing the tour, there is a tent where visitors can make purchases of books, pictures, CDs and DVDs about the Tabernacle.
Visitors to the model Taber-nacle, he said, are likely to leave with a better appreciation of the centrality of Christ for eternal salvation and the gravity of sin itself. They are also likely to leave with a better appreciation of how the timeline of the Jewish sacrificial system corresponds with the death of Jesus Christ.
He said "The lamb was killed at 9:00 a.m. each morning. The Children of Israel would stop wherever they were and face the direction of the Tabernacle at 9:00 a.m. By faith, it would be like they were right there doing the sanctuary service. They did the same thing at 3:00 p.m. In St. Mark 15, Jesus hangs on the cross at 9:00 a.m. and he dies at 3:00 p.m. The lamb foretold Jesus. Jesus knew when He was going to die," said Mr. Leinneweber.
DIVERSE APPEAL
Mr. Leinneweber, a high school teacher of Bible, told The Gleaner that, in carrying the model Tabernacle all over the U.S.,
it had an appeal to diverse denominations and church groups.
"It seems to me there is a growing interest. It is like the churches - all of a sudden, they are studying the actual sanctuary themselves. They say things like 'You came exactly right on time'."
Mr. Leinneweber, who is accompanied by several students of the school where he teaches, said he and the tour guides are careful to speak only what the Bible has clearly said about the Tabernacle.
"If the Bible does not refer to it, then we don't necessarily go into details about it. We give only details about what we know the Bible talks about," he said.
Send feedback to mark.dawes@gleanerjm.com
