Of all the episodes in the life of Jesus, none seems more incongruous or out of place than the recounting of how he went into the temple that day and cleaned the place out. How is it that sweet baby Jesus, meek and mild, suddenly turns into a Holy terror and runs through the temple with a whip of cords. He turns over the tables of the money changers [that caused quite a scramble I venture to say], scattered birds, doves, pigeons, lambs and cattle in all directions. I'll bet it looked like one of those cattle stampedes you see in the western movies.
The attitude of the religious authorities brought out righteous anger in Jesus. Let's remember back to an incident in the life of Jesus, when he was very young. In the gospel of Luke it is recorded that when Jesus was 12 years old his parents took him up to Jerusalem to the feast of the Passover. He stayed behind and after three days Mary and Joseph found him in the temple. When Mary asked him why he had treated them the way he did, he replied, "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" Jesus from an early age had an attitude about what was proper respect for the house of God, his Father. In light of the third commandment he would not take the Name of the LORD, in vain or more properly, for granted. He would not cheapen the Name of God, nor would he allow the place where the Name of God dwelt to be cheapened. When King Solomon had completed building the first Temple during the prayer of dedication he mentioned three times that it was the "House I have built for your Name" [1 Kings 8: 43, 44 & 48]. As sacrifices were made the temple was filled with a cloud symbolizing the presence of the LORD. Jesus was rightly upset at what he found when he went into the temple. Between the time when he went to the temple as a young man and this visit some major changes had taken place in the atmosphere around the temple.
Just as he had done as a young man, many others made a yearly pilgrimage to the temple to sacrifice and worship. Since it was probably inconvenient to bring your own lamb or bull with you if you came any distance at all, it probably became the custom to buy your animal in Jerusalem. Also, since many pilgrims came from far away places in the Roman Empire they brought with them various types of money or coins bearing the image of the Roman emperor or some other notable person. To bring this money into the temple and offer it to God with a graven image would be highly improper so they would normally trade it for Temple coins. Now any individual with a little common sense would see that here was a really great opportunity to make some money. Most of the people making the money were retailers and moneychangers doing business outside the temple but close to it. It finally dawned on the chief priests and elders that they could get a piece of the action by renting or leasing space on the Temple grounds to the vendors and money changers. The area they leased was known as the Court of the Gentiles. The most sacred place on the temple grounds was the Holy of Holies, where only the High Priest entered, on the Day of Atonement. Next was the Court of the Priests, where only priests entered and it was furnished with the the Seven branched Lamp stand, the Altar of Incense and the Table of the Bread of the Presence. Remember this was where Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist encountered the angel Gabriel. Next, we find the Court of the Israelites, where the Altar of Burnt Offering, and the Brazen Laver, where Jewish worshippers handed over their sacrifices and worshipped. Next was the Court of the Women where they were limited to this area except when they went into the court of the Israelites to worship. Last and largest of all was the Court of the Gentiles, where Gentiles who converted to Judaism came to worship. This space was turned in to a vast flea market. No doubt what went through Jesus' mind were the words, IT’S TIME TO CLEAN THE TEMPLE.
There is a close connection between all the lessons we have today. Jesus in the gospel is reacting to the flagrant violation of the holiness of God as embodied in the Ten Commandments. We heard the whole set of ten this morning in the reading from Exodus. The LAW gives us the right thing to do. However, St. Paul reminds us in the letter to the Romans how the law conflicts with the problem of sin and how we react to it when it pops up in our lives.
"Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin." [Romans 7: 13-25]
That is an illustration of how sin dwells in our flesh and causes us problems. Now that flesh which is causing us problems is not the actual body but if you drop the “h” and spell flesh backwards then you see you have the self which is causing us the issues. It’s the SELFISH ATTITUDES we don’t change that cause us problems and lead us into sin. Once we know what the law is or the rules are, we have to abide by them even when we don’t like them. We seem to have this desire to do the opposite of what we have been told. God gave his people the commandments to set them apart from all the rest of the peoples and cultures around them. They were to be a Holy Nation, a royal priesthood, God’s own people. But almost immediately upon receiving the law they started rebelling against God. They continually provoked him to anger. That is what we see taking place in the Gospel reading as Jesus gets righteously angry at the leaders of Israel for what they have done to the Temple of God.
In last week's gospel reading Jesus told his disciples to deny themselves, pick up their crosses and follow him. It didn't just mean to bear up under a hardship or put up with some unpleasantness, but rather choosing the difficult but the RIGHT thing to do. For Jesus, at this particular time, it meant cleaning out the temple. For him to consciously decide to go into the temple and overturn the tables of the moneychangers and drive out all those animals and people who were selling took a conscious, and very hard decision. Because once he did that, he would place himself on a collision course with the authorities that in all likelihood would cost him his life. But he decides that he cannot tolerate this desecration of his Father's house and he makes a whip of cords and proceeds because he has decided: IT'S TIME TO CLEAN THE TEMPLE. He goes through the temple area scattering tables, people, cattle and sheep and tells the people selling doves; "Take these things away; you shall not make my Father's house a house of trade." Right away we see Jesus putting the Jewish leaders on notice that he is the Son of God, when he says that this is My Father's house. This episode of the temple cleansing is placed at the beginning of John's gospel to set the tone of the confrontation that will occur between Jesus and the Jewish leaders throughout the gospel. Sure enough, when the dust is settling in the courtyard, the Jewish leaders come to him and ask him; "What sign have you to show us for doing this?" They ask him this because this was the Jewish tradition of the testing of the prophet. This was especially important in this case because the actions of Jesus were so outrageous, if he were not who he claimed to be. If he were not the Messiah his actions would be completely inexcusable. His disciples probably stood back in awe and watched all this. They remembered later that the psalms [69:9] record that "Zeal for your house will consume me." Now this consuming is not in a psychological sense but in the sense of destroying as it says in Revelation 20:9 where "fire came down and consumed them." This is confirmed in Jesus' words to the sign seekers; "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." You see Jesus has made his decision and picked up his cross and it will eventually destroy him. John points to a subtle shift in theology presented by Jesus for the Jews and for his followers. The temple that Jesus spoke of was his body, and after his resurrection the disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. No longer would the disciples or those believers in Jesus need to come to the Temple in Jerusalem to encounter the living God. No longer would they need to exchange their money for Temple coins to pay for their sacrifices. No longer would they need to sacrifice animals as burnt offerings for their sins. No longer would any these things be necessary for all these would be accomplished in Jesus. His body would become the sacrifice for sins, his body would be the payment for the sacrifice and in him they would encounter the living God. As he told the woman at the well, in chapter 4 of John's gospel, when she said to him; Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. The hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." [John 4:19-24] Brothers and Sisters, before we can worship the Father in spirit and truth, we must realize that: IT'S TIME TO CLEAN THE TEMPLE! But what is the temple that we are to clean? We have our clue from St. Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians, when he wrote; "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? God's temple is holy, and that temple you are. [1 Corinthians 3:16-17] Paul's words "You are God's temple" should more properly be translated "You all are God's temple" or here in Georgia "Y'all are God's temple." When the church gathers in community to worship in spirit and truth, then the spirit of the living God is present. When we come to worship the living God we are treading on Holy Ground. We realize that: IT'S TIME TO CLEAN THE TEMPLE! We have to cleanse ourselves; we draw near, with faith, to confess our sins in order to encounter God through his Son Jesus Christ, in the Eucharist. Then we can cry with the Psalmist; "How dear to me is your dwelling, O LORD of hosts! My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God. [Psalm 84:1] Lent is that time that the church provides for us to make a spiritual inventory, develop some spiritual disciplines and set aside time to prepare ourselves to commemorate the passion of Our LORD Jesus Christ and thanks be to God to celebrate his resurrection.
A. BACKGROUND NOTES: The Ten Commandments and the Temple.
1. The Ten Commandments:
a. Name. Decalogue is the name by which the Greek Fathers designated "the Ten Commandments," which were written by God on tablets of stone and given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. In Heb. the name is "ten commandments" It is also called "the moral law," "the two tablets of the testimony”.
b. This unique place of the Ten Commandments is seen in the circumstance of their delivery. God gave the rest of the law through the lips of Moses, but these were spoken by God Himself and with an awful display of splendor and solemnity never before witnessed [Exodus 19]. In addition, these laws were written by God's own finger and on durable tablets of stone [Deuteronomy 9:11]. In the symbolism of the East, the stone signified the perpetuity of the law written upon it. Written on both sides, it meant the completeness of the code. Still another fact marks the unique place of the Ten Commandments. The tablets of stone were put in the most sacred place in the world-- in the Tabernacle, in the "holy of holies," in the Ark of the Covenant. Thus they were plainly recognized as containing in themselves the sum and substance of what was held to be strictly required by the covenant.
2. The Temple:
Temple in the New Testament. The New Testament uses two words for Temple. One of these words refers to the collection of buildings that made up the Temple in Jerusalem, while the other usually refers to the sanctuary of the Temple. Jesus related to the Temple in four distinct ways.
Jesus taught that the church [Matthew 16:18] is the new, eschatological temple [Matthew 18:19-20; John 14:23]. At the moment of Jesus' death, the veil of the Temple was torn from top to bottom [Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45]. By His death, Jesus opened a new way into the presence of God. A new order replaced the old. No longer was the Temple in Jerusalem to be the place where men worshiped God. From now on they would worship Him "in spirit and truth" [John 4:21-24].
B. DOCTRINAL POINTS
1. The Israelites are called upon to remain faithful to the God who has proven to them his commitment to their well-being and livelihood. The remainder of the commandments ensures the well-being of human society by calling upon all to keep in mind that they are children of God.
2. The episode in John’s gospel continues John’s theme of replacement, in that the risen body of Jesus will replace the Temple as the place of worship and encounter with God.
3. In the Passion [during Passover] Jesus will be consumed because of his faithfulness to the Father’s will. Psalm 69 is used as a prophecy of that event.
4. Jesus’ prophetic action in the temple is challenged by the Jews with a request for a sign. The Jews are destroying the temple and they do not understand that the new temple is the crucified body of Jesus raised in glory.
5. Jesus is the way to the Father. Not rituals, sacrifices or taxes, but commitment to doing the Father’s will and belief in the One whom God has sent will open the way to eternal life.
C. APPLICATION/DISCUSSION:
Dr. Richard Halverson wrote to Ray Stedman that he had read a report in which a survey organization had collected all the reports of conversions in the United States by some of the outstanding evangelistic agencies of our day. The total came to 250 million! Now there are only 250 million Americans to begin with, so according to these organizations' figures, everyone in this country is a Christian! But we know that is not true, and the Lord knows it is not true. He deals only with realities. He sees through the facades and the illusions, deeper than we ourselves can see.
It is clear in this account that many of the people involved in the traffic in the temple were unaware there was anything wrong with it. Money-changing was necessary, selling animals was necessary. But that could have been carried on outside the temple courts and been just as effective. Through the years and through tradition, however, it had all crept inside the temple until people were probably unaware that anything was wrong with the practice. But our Lord knew. He refused to compromise with it, or put up with it, and forced the issue so people saw what God saw when he looked at the temple. This is what John wants us to remember. We are dealing with a God of reality, a God who cannot be fooled, a God who will always deal in loving forgiveness with anyone who does not defend his evil. When we admit it, when we come asking to be cleansed, and freed, he never turns us away, he never deals with us harshly. But when we come justifying our actions, excusing them, fooling ourselves, we find him refusing to commit himself to us.
Thus the disciples learned in this account very wonderful things about God. They learned to fear God, to realize that though he is a God of mercy he is also a God of majesty. They looked at our Lord with different eyes as they walked away from this scene. They felt the full warmth of his acceptance, but they felt the thrust of his justice and his majesty as well. That is what being a disciple must come to mean. [The TempleCleanser]
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