The Good Samaritan

This weekend I met a decendant of the good Samaritan. Well, that is actually a lie but I did meet a Samaritan. Our class went up onto Mt. Gerazim where the Samaritans had their temple during the time of Christ. They believed themselves to be the "remnant" of Israel of whom God was still faithful to; the true Israel so to speak. The temple is no longer there but, suprisingly enough, the Samaritans are! There is a "remant" of 700 Samaritans living on Mt. Gerazim to this day. There are a self-sufficient village with schools and everything right on the mountain. They still believe themselves to be the true Israel. We talked with one fellow and he told us all about their beliefs. Supposidly they have the oldest copy of the the first five books of the Bible, which is the only part they actually adhere to. However, unfortunately for us (and probably everybody, including all the Samaritans) no one is allowed to actually see their copy. They also still do animal sacrifice. We stood on their sacrificial altar. It is a very odd place. Once a year the Samaritan high priests sacrifice a whole bunch of lambs and one small child taken from a neighboring village. Just kidding. They only sacrifice the lambs. I sort of thought civilized man was over the whole "animal sacrifice" thing. Apparently not. The whole thing was very odd. I also got the chance to see the place where the Tabernacle was semi-permanently located in Shiloh. It was neat to be there and think about what it might have looked like when it was there. It was interesting also because we discussed the set-up of the Tabernacle and it's spiritual implications. It was very similar to the Temple in Jerusalem (it was basically the pre-curser to the Temple). There was a Holy of Holies type place where God dwelt. The beautiful thing is that ever since Christ's work on the Cross God no longer dwells in the Temple, Tabernacle, or the Holy of Holies because Christ was indeed the Temple (he even said so!). Now, after Christ's ascension to the right hand of the Father Christians are actually the Temple! Paul says this is his first letter to the Corinthians. Now, God actually lives in us and we, the Christian body, are the Tabernacle, Temple, and indeed in some mysterious and mystical sense Christ himself! For, as St. Theresa of Avila put it, "Christ has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no eyes but ours, etc." God lives in us. What a beautiful thing to realize!