Jesus Setting Up His Tent

One of the greatest tragedies in life I believe, is never really getting a true revelation of exactly what it was that Jesus did for us when He became a man and walked the earth. Up until a few years ago, I was one of those tragic people without a clear revelation on this truth. Oh, I knew Jesus, and I had fully given my life to his service, but when it came to really knowing the truth of Jesus, I had absolutely no clue. I lived in fear, anger, doubt and self-hatred, moving from one crisis to the next, never really knowing the love of Jesus.

And I know that “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son,” is a great little Sunday school lesson that leaves us all warm and fuzzy as we walk out of church on Sunday morning, but I often wonder how many people on this earth actually know that they know that they know that Jesus actually loves them, I mean really loves them, regardless of any circumstances.

Label it with whatever psychological term you want, but I had spent my entire life up until just a few years ago feeling and believing that God was disappointed in me, even ashamed of me. But during my senior year in college in 2006 that began to change. Ironically enough, during that time I was stressed to the max with a newborn baby, a husband, financial obligations, the works.

But the foreign language course I had chosen to take in college was New Testament Greek, and it required two years of credits to complete. During the last semester we all completed a series of word studies in which we traced key New Testament words back to their roots, all the way through Classical Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. My professor assigned to me the word “skene.”

The word was used to describe the tabernacle, the movable temple of God found in the Old Testament, which has also been described in the Old Testament as a “tent,” and this is not just any tent, but a tent made for a king. You’ll also find the word in Hebrews 8:2 as an allegory of the celestial or true tabernacle:

“And who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle [skene] set up by the Lord, not by man.”

But that’s not even the half of the spiritual truths hidden in this word. In the Septuagint, the word implies the concept of “dwelling” rather than a literal tent. And in its other forms, the word refers to a metaphor of the soul dwelling in the human body, the body being a tent which is taken down at our death. And a tent, as described in the Septuagint, would have been one of green boughs or skins.

Where you’ve seen the word the most in its verb form is probably John 1:14,

“The Word became flesh and dwelt [skenow] among us, We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The word “skenow” (pronounced ske-na-ow) literally means “to make a dwelling,” or “to set up one’s tent,” as in, Jesus set up His tent in the body of a man, to experience life exactly as we experience it here on earth. And this word, “to set up one’s tent,” was often used to refer to the tents of soldiers in battle.

I don’t think we can ever really truly fulfill our destiny without the revelation that Jesus set up his earthly tent, dwelt in it, and became a soldier in humanity’s fight to reclaim its place in the presence of the Almighty God, Yahweh.

God has long since proclaimed war with Satan and his demons, and in Jesus Christ He took the battlefield in the flesh and pitched his tent to prosecute the war.

That is an amazing thought, but the even greater thought is that Jesus not only walked among us, but He resides in us, He set up His tent in our souls, a temporary dwelling until the day we all reside in heaven. And from this word, “skene,” we know that Jesus even put our sin upon Himself by putting our skin upon Himself.

Just think about. I don’t know what kind of tent you may have, but our tent takes quite a while to set up. By the time we find our camping spot, get our tent staked and set up with everything in, and set up the grill to grill some burgers, it’s maybe an hour or two later. It’s not like just checking yourself into a motel and running to the nearest Burger King to grab a bite to eat. Think of that, and think of how minute all that preparation is compared to the preparation involved before Jesus could even set up his tent in our souls. He had to be staked to a tree before He could even begin to set up His tent for the battle that would take place in our individual souls.

And for me, while “Jesus loves me this I know,” and “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son,” are great Sunday morning lessons, they will never compare to the mental image of Jesus setting up His tent in my home, in my living room, and in my very soul, to live every moment with me, to fight for me, to be in my presence every minute of my life, until my earthly tent is taken down and our tents are no longer required. Think of Jesus, from the point of our acceptance of His love, piercing the stakes into our flesh and raising up His tent in our very souls.

With those truths a permanent part of your soul, you will never again feel alone, neglected, beaten, bruised or forsaken, because Jesus has set up His home in each of us to make our fight His fight.

~ Written by Kate Turnbow. Her blog is called Confessions of a Seeker where she blogs about faith and life. She’s a work at home mom who is a former journalist turned investigations company owner, but first and foremost she is a Jesus Seeker!