Spring Cleaning
John 2:13-25
It has been a long and gloomy winter here where I live. So, it is good to see the first signs of spring come. After staying inside most of the season because of the cold, rainy, weather and the persistence of the Coronavirus, houses here tend to get musty and dusty. Part of getting the house ready for spring is the spring cleaning. The windows are opened to let fresh air in. The houses are dusted and given a good cleaning, This, and the warmer weather helps cheer people up. In the old days when there was no running or hot water, it was the time for the first bath. It must have felt good to be clean.
In the text we read this morning, it says that it was the time of the Passover feast. Passover is celebrated along with the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the springtime. In preparation for this holiday season, houses had to be cleansed of all leaven. There was a practical side to this as leaven can get old which would mean the bread would not rise as much. By removing the old leaven, the way was made for new, fresh leaven to mix with the bread. As this was the time of the barley harvest as well, it meant new bread made with fresh leaven.
But there was a religious side to the rigorous removal of leaven, It was commanded by the LORD. In many ways, leaven stands as a metaphor for personal sin. A little sin will cause greater sins to rise. It was a time of reflection in which the Jewish believers would look inside their lives in order to purge the sins. This was not to purge them so one could start out with fresh little sins, of course. But, inevitably, these sins found their way in.
It was at this time that Jesus entered into the Temple. Hundreds of thousands of Jews came to Jerusalem every year to celebrate Passover. Each family had to bring a lamb for the Passover meal. This lamb had to be spotless and in good health. As it was difficult to bring a lamb from faraway places, it became convenient to buy one from the priests once they got there. Besides the necessary lamb, the people needed other sacrificial animals for sin and thanksgiving offerings as well. These would include the mentioned turtledoves. These, too, were conveniently for sale. Finally, each male Jew was required to pay the Temple tax of half a shekel. It could not be paid in Roman coin which had depictions of Caesar as a god on it. So, these unclean coins would have to be exchanged for a shekel which was clean. A small copper coin was charged to exchange the money. One could imagine how noisy the outer court of the Temple must have been. On would hear haggling on prices, the clinking of coins, the cooing of the doves, and the bleating of the sheep. The place was a madhouse.
There were many God-fearing Gentiles who believed in Yahweh who came. The Temple was highly segregated. Gentiles could only enter the outer court of the Temple where all this was going on. It would have been hard for them to pray there. Women could go into the court of the women. Men could go one step further. The there was the court of the priests, the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. The Gentiles were far away from the center of the Temple where the LORD’s presence was, symbolically speaking.
Jesus was infuriated by what He saw. One would think that all this necessary business could have been conducted elsewhere in the city. We can’t tell for sure whether this cleansing of the Temple in John was an earlier cleansing or was the same one recorded by the other Gospels. John may have juxtaposed the first sign He did at the wedding in Cana with on of the last signs from the last week of His life. I tend to think the latter, but it isn’t all that important here today. What is important that the Lord of the Covenant had suddenly appeared into the Temple as the prophet Malachi predicted. He also predicted that this messenger of the Covenant would purify the sons of Levi that they would offer an offering in righteousness.
There are two matters which disturbed Jesus. The other Gospels tell us that Jesus considered God’s house was to be a place for prayer. But, instead, it had become a den of thieves. In this, Jesus was quoting the prophet Jeremiah. It was bad enough that the business was conducted on Temple grounds but that they were charging outrageous prices. As the priest had to approve the lamb for sacrifice, they might scruple at a lamb that someone had brought but also might overlook the blemishes on their own lambs that they sold. The prophet Malachi also seems to refer to this. If they offered these lame and blind animals to the governor, would the governor be amused? How much more powerful and holy is God! One can only think of what happened to Ananias and Sapphira when they tried to offer part of the price for a piece of land they had sold as though they had offered all. In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells them to stop making His Father’s house a house of merchandise. The Greek word here is “emporium.”
Jesus made a whip and drove them all out with their sheep, oxen, and doves. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers as well. The people would probably have been glad to see Jesus avenge them for all the injuries they had suffered from these priests and merchants. But as the business of the Temple was a large part of the economy of Jerusalem, and Passover was by far the most profitable holiday, their Christmas season, so to speak, the priests and merchants would have been outraged.
The authorities confronted Jesus and asked for a sign from Jesus. Who gave Him the authority to do this outrage? Jesus replied: “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up. He was referring to the Temple of His body rather than a building. The first sign was the wedding in Cana. The last sign was to be the Resurrection. The Jews did not understand what Jesus was saying, nor did His disciples until after the Resurrection. Herod’s rebuild of the Temple in Jerusalem was already going on for 46 years, and the Temple would not be complete until eight years before it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
The Temple in Jerusalem had undergone a complete spring cleaning. But this was not enough to take care of the sins of the world. All the sacrificial animals could only point to the need of a greater cleansing. And a greater cleansing was coming. They would destroy the true Temple. He would be hung on a cross as a curse. But in doing son, He became the sin offering for all sin. We can now be cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. This is the spring cleaning we all need. As Jesus predicted, they destroyed Him. But Jesus rose from the dead, which showed that the sacrifice was accepted. All who will believe on the Lord Jesus shall be saved from sin.
Now let us fast forward two thousand years to us today. What can we learn from this passage today? The most important thing is that all have sinned, and Jesus alone can atone for our sin. If we do not come to Christ, nothing else ultimately matters. We cannot cleanse our sin by ourselves. No matter how much we try to scrub ourselves, it is never enough. So, we must be cleansed in the blood of the Lamb.
We also learn that we must take caution not to make our houses of worship a business. The church has to conduct business, of course, just like the Temple tax and sacrificial system of the Temple was necessary. But these must not infringe upon the main mission of the church which is to proclaim Jesus Christ. It is to be a holy house. The word “sanctuary” means “holy place.” It is here that we worship, pray. And praise. In the days of the Coronavirus, we have been told to thoroughly physically clean our churches to prevent the tiny virus from infecting the members. This is altogether appropriate. But are we as scrupulous about those nagging sins which detract from the church’s mission. In many ways, this is a more malignant virus than COVID. Let us remember that this is the season of Lent. It is a time for our spring cleaning. We have been burdened and worried about many things. We have been distracted from our main mission. Sometimes the things that distract us are necessary. But if these things become the main thing, then the spiritual condition of the church will suffer. We must remember the words of Paul: “You (plural) are the Temple (singular) of the Holy Spirit. This means that the church people, not the building, is God’s Temple. We need to pray for the unity of the Holy Spirit in the church. It is more than the building that needs a spring cleaning. The body of Christ needs the greater cleansing.
What is true of the church is true of us as individuals as well. This season of Lent is a time we should spend in prayer and reflection. We need to think back to the cross where Jesus died for us. It is a time not only to speak to God, but to listen. Are we doing what is most important and putting this first? We all need to eat, but Jesus tells us that it is even more important to obey Him. He is the “Bread of Heaven.” Food nourishes for a day, but the Word of God feeds us eternally. How do we spend our time? This was something John Wesley was quite concerned with. When the coronavirus hit, and there was no professional sports, the theaters were closed, and the places of amusements also, did we spend that free time in studying the Bible and prayer. How a person spends one’s time says a lot about the condition of one’s heart. We had the opportunity to be cleansed of all our distractions to dedicate ourselves to God’s service? Did we? Will we serve Him any better when all these distractions reappear?
The Reformers stated that the church and its members needed to continuously be in the spirit of reform. Every season of the year is a good time for spring cleaning.
