Our culture and its ideas are a funny thing. It is a hodgepodge of different ideas built up over time and modified. And sometimes why we do things is forgotten. I think it was G.K Chesterton [in his book Heretics] who said if someone was looking on to a funeral they might think we believe the dead can smell for we lay flowers on gravestones, and why do we call white wine “white” when really it is yellow? I’m sure there is a reason why we drive on the left-hand side of the road, but I don’t know the reason, we just do. I don’t know the reason why ministers wear a white dot on their collar. I’ve asked some other ministers and I still haven’t gotten a reason for this fashion statement.
Cleansing the Courts
In our story today, it is set at Passover. This was the big Jewish Festival, and like trying to shop two days before Christmas in the shopping malls, the temple would have been busy, it was sort of ground zero for this event.
The Passover was a time to remember when God rescued his people from slavery, where a lamb was sacrificed and its blood told God to pass over that house so that death would not enter it. That lamb's blood saved the firstborn of that household. And now it was a yearly festival for the Jewish people to remember that God has saved, and will save His people.
And the Temple would be very busy at this time. Pilgrims would come to Jerusalem for the festival and they would visit the temple to pay their tithe and offer sacrifices to God. For the Temple was the place where people could meet with God and offer Him sacrifices for their sins.
So during all this, there is no wonder that it is bedlam when Jesus arrives. There are animals everywhere, probably leaving all sorts of smells around, and there is money being exchanged for people to buy the animals. You see in order to buy the animal for your sacrifice you had to use the temple’s own currency. They didn’t like that the Roman coins had the image of ceases on them, so they wouldn’t accept that. Instead, they had their own imageless coins that you had to use, which also had the convent addition of controlling your own exchange rate.
Now Jesus sees this chaos and gets angry. And I think it’s important to know why Jesus was angry. In verse 15 it says Jesus drove them all out of the temple courts. and in verse 16 Jesus said, “Stop turning my Father’s house into a market”.
Jesus didn’t like what had become of the temple. He was angry, but His anger showed His love. He didn’t want His Fathers's place to be a shopping center.
You see, it wasn’t necessarily the exchanging and selling of coins and animals was the main problem. This was actually a convent service provided by the temple for pilgrims who had a long way to travel. Instead of trying to bring a sacrifice along for a few day's journey, you could buy a sacrifice that was picked by the temple priests that would be suitable. This was to help those who had come from a long journey. But this convenience had a bit of creep. It had ended up in the temple courts. This place was within the temple, this place was the only space the Gentiles could worship God and here this convenience has crept in and has stopped the Gentiles from being able to worship God too. Jesus was angry because of where this selling was taking place.
In fact, it is quite possible that this practice of selling within the temple courts was a new thing put in under the current High Priests of the day. Some records show that this exchange used to take place nearby and it was Caiaphas (the current high priest) who allowed the merchants to set up within the temple. (The Lectionary Commentary, Volume 3: The Gospels (The Third Readings) Third Sunday in Lent, Year B (Scott Black Johnston))
And Jesus says "no, this is not right. You have forgotten the purpose of this court, you have forgotten the meaning behind what you are doing. The temple is here for God, not for gain. It is for sacrifice, not for selling."
Confronting the Christ
Jesus is then confronted by the Jews, and, interestingly, they don’t ask why He is doing this. I think they probably know. I think they know that this convenience offered inside the temple was already controversial. Instead, their question to Jesus is about His authority. Who or what gives Him the right to clear the temple. It’s not His. He is not a priest. They ask for Jesus to show His ID, and give proof of who he is and he replies in a strange cryptic way.Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” (John 2:19 NIV)This is strange and they are confused, for they point out, that this temple was still being built. They started it 46 years ago and it still wasn’t finished. The temple would be finally finished nearly 30 years after this in AD 63. How on earth, with no cement mixer or cranes or an army of tradies could Jesus rebuild such a huge building, in only three days?
But John explains to all of us that “The temple He had spoken of was his body”. After Jesus was raised from the dead, this statement made a lot of sense. Jesus was the new temple. He was the place where people could meet with God and where the one true sacrifice was made for us. Jesus replaces that one location of worship and says now, you can worship anywhere, in spirit and in truth (4:23) because of Him.
And in one sense those who opposed Jesus did destroy His temple, His body. They killed him and “not one bone of his body is left standing”. But, their “efforts were in vain, for not even the tomb could hold him” for Jesus was raised from the dead. (Gloer, W. H. (2008). Homiletical Perspective on
John 2:13–22. In D. L. Bartlett & B. B. Taylor (Eds.), Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year B (Vol. 2, p. 97). Westminster John Knox Press.)
It is this resurrection hope that we have, for Jesus has destroyed death. He is lord over death, and so He is Lord over the temple too.
The sellers and priests had corrupted the temple, in the same way, we might lament the distractions around Easter with a rabbit with chocolate eggs. They had forgotten the purpose of the temple, they showed an irreverence for it.
Every time you eat a chocolate egg, remember that we can get the story wrong. Remember that we need to know the true Jesus and not corrupt the story. When you eat a chocolate egg remember Jesus cleaning the temple, for they had forgotten its purpose. Over Easter, remember Jesus and His purpose and to take a good look at who Jesus really is, not who we want Him to be.
You see, we need to be careful with who we think Jesus is so that parts of our culture don’t creep in and mingle with the truth, so that convinces or commerce doesn’t interfere with the real Jesus. Jesus said later in this Gospel
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6 NIV)Our culture may not like Jesus saying He is the only way, but we need to believe His words if we are to worship Him correctly.
Familiarity with Jesus is a good thing, but lets not be irreverent toward Him. He is Lord over all. He has conquered death for us. It is 25 days till Easter, in the lead-up to this great reminder of what Jesus accomplished on the cross and in the empty tomb, let us cleans our worship of Jesus. Remembering who He really is and what He really taught. That He gets angry as those who misuse His Father's house and gets angry with those who corrupt His Father's plans. But Jesus is also the new temple, where we can meet with God, where He offered the one true sacrifice for us all. May we believe “scripture and the words that Jesus has spoken” (verse 22).
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