3.7.21 John 2:13–22
13 The Jewish Passover was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and money changers sitting at tables. 15 He made a whip of cords and drove everyone out of the temple courts, along with the sheep and oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those selling doves he said, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a place of business!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 So the Jews responded, “What sign are you going to show us to prove you can do these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” 20 The Jews said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple! And you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. Then they believed the Scripture and what Jesus had said.
The Angry Jesus Is Scary But Necessary
If you were Bob Ross, how would you paint Jesus? “Here, let’s put a little happy smile on Jesus. Paint a nice little robe on Him. Nice beard, curly hair. Yes, just like that.” Was Jesus mostly serious? Did He like to joke around? The recent miniseries called “The Chosen” has the most likeable Jesus in my opinion, because He is friendly and approachable; good with children. We like the stories of Jesus being welcoming, non-judgmental, eating with tax collectors and “sinners.”
Bob Ross probably wouldn’t paint Jesus this way. “Here’s a nice little happy whip. Let’s throw some coins over here. Let’s paint a scared cow over here. Look, he just stepped on Simeon’s foot.” He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those selling doves he said, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a place of business!” It’s kind of scary! You know, that’s not all bad. It’s a good thing to see. Why? Because God isn’t always Mr. Happy Sunshine. He says He is slow to anger, but nonetheless that implies that He does become angry. Look at how God responds to the Israelites worshiping the golden calf in the book of Exodus. Look at the Flood. Look at Judgment Day. Don’t tell me God doesn’t have anger. And remember, Jesus is God.
It’s good for us to think about this. There’s an aversion to anger in our society. Anger is associated with hate, and hate is a big “no-no.” Anger seems to be the opposite of tolerance. And we ourselves preach patience, kindness, and self-control. So getting out a whip and turning over tables doesn’t seem very loving or tolerant. But anger is sometimes needed when there is danger involved. If you caught your child playing with fire you would need to be angry to show the child the danger there is in disobeying you in that way. The child could be burned, and you need to send a clear message. There is such a thing as righteous anger. The Bible only says, “in your anger, do not sin.” We have to be careful against impatient anger, and we have to be careful what we do with our anger when it is well warranted.
The disciples were not turned off by Jesus' anger. His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” They associated Jesus’ anger with being “zealous.” To be zealous means, “to have a deep concern for or devotion to someone or something.” If you have a deep concern or devotion to someone or something, you will be angry when someone is ruining it. It shows that you love it. You care for it. You will also have strong EMOTIONS. Anger is not always a bad thing or a hateful thing. Actually, it can be a loving thing. Love and anger sometimes go hand in hand. They aren’t as foreign to each other as you might expect.
Think about that when it comes to relationships, and a spouse decides to leave his or her husband or wife. It doesn’t seem right when they both amicably decide to part ways. In a sense, it then becomes a double sin. It should BOTHER you if your spouse wants to leave you. I don’t love my cars, but when I notice a new dent on them it doesn’t exactly make me happy that someone put a new dent in it and didn’t say something to me. I paid for it and I still care for it, and someone just dented it. Honestly, you probably should be angry about it. If you really care about someone or something, if you are zealous for them, you don’t just let it slide without a fight. I’m not talking about using violence, but there should be some passion there. We’ve lost our sight of that in our tolerant society.
The devil wants us to tolerate sin and even celebrate it. But God’s Word says that sin is harmful. Sin separates us from God, who hates sin. If we love God, we love what He loves too. We don’t want to lose our relationship with Him by doing things that would ruin His reputation, estrange us from Him, or harm ourselves as well in the process.
What was Jesus’ deep concern for? His Father’s house. He wanted people to be coming to the synagogue to hear God’s Word and see the sacrifices being made, hearing the confessions of sin and the songs being sung. Even though animals were used for sacrifice, they were turning the church into a farmyard and a marketplace. Imagine how loud and stinky it would have been in there for all of those people to be bartering for animals in the midst of worship. How would people be able to have a sense of honor and reverence for God in the middle of a barnyard? How would they be able to pay attention to the Word of God? Where would the sense of holiness be with all of that going on? Your eyes would be listening to two people bartering. You’d see another cow brought in. You’d hear the doves cooing. It would be more like a petting zoo than a place of worship. So Jesus was angry about it.
We too should be careful about the atmosphere that we have here in worship. We don’t want there to be distractions from the Word of God. We want to maintain a sense of reverence. We want God’s Word to be proclaimed through Word, song, and sacrament, which points to Jesus and keeps focused on Him.
Think about how many people walked in and out of worship and never thought twice about what was going on. They felt that it was completely normal to have this going on. And maybe Jesus even let it go on without saying anything up to this point. So maybe they all thought, “There’s nothing to see here.” Psalm 50 talks about this phenomenon in verses 16-21 where God says to the wicked Israelites,
16 “What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips? 17 You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you. 18 When you see a thief, you join with him; you throw in your lot with adulterers. 19 You use your mouth for evil and harness your tongue to deceit. 20 You speak continually against your brother and slander your own mother’s son. 21 These things you have done and I kept silent; you thought I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face.
So it happens with members of churches, children and grandchildren of Christian parents and grandparents who knowingly break God’s law and hear no rebuke. They associate it with acceptance. Behind the scenes there is adultery, abuse, or vulgar language. Maybe they think that because they still pray and go to church once in a while that all is well. But all of that ends with a sudden confrontation when, like in the Wizard of Oz, the curtain is drawn back, and they are exposed for who they are and what they are doing. They didn’t realize it, but their behavior was making God angry.
That’s what Jesus does here with the money changers in the temple. They convinced themselves that they were performing a nice service for the church. So Jesus exposed their sins. He overturned their tables. He showed them that what they were doing was wrong. It was scary.
That’s a part of why we come to hear the Word of God. We have to be reminded that God is not as tolerant as we like to think. We mistake patience with acceptance. So maybe we laugh about having had too much to drink. Perhaps we think it funny when we humiliate someone online with a crude comment and think that it’s no big deal when we text something about someone that is mean or judgmental. We justify it with “I’m just telling it how it is.” You dig into the Word of God and you suddenly come to realize that you’ve sinned, and it is a big deal. Jesus is overthrowing tables. This is not a minor deal to God.
We talked about this in Bible Study on Thursday a few weeks ago. When Jesus warns against calling someone a “fool,” and warns of being in danger of the fire of hell. How many people have called our governor an idiot and not thought twice about it? If she makes foolish decisions, there are probably more respectful ways of exposing those decisions than disrespectful name calling. Yet with a seemingly justified anger, we feel we can throw these epithets around with no sin at all. Maybe we aren’t taking the time to reflect on our own behavior in light of the Word of God. Jesus knew the Word. He IS the Word. He saw it as it was, and He exposed it for what it was.
Those in charge of the temple were defensive. They were the ones who were tolerating this behavior in the first place. And they were well aware of it. Maybe they had arguments about whether to allow the animals and merchants in there in the first place. But maybe they also got a cut of the action. Maybe they made some money on the deal. So they tolerated it. And now Jesus exposed it, and instead of welcoming the rebuke, they were defensive. So the Jews responded, “What sign are you going to show us to prove you can do these things?” I suppose they had to deal with plenty of people who came into the temple and claimed divine authority. Who knows how many supposed “prophets” came strolling into town. So they asked for a miraculous sign to prove Jesus' authority to do what He was doing. And that’s a pretty high standard to try and cleanse out the temple.
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” 20 The Jews said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple! And you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body. What better sign could Jesus give? The answer of Jesus is so beautiful to us, as John perfectly explained what Jesus was talking about. He was pointing His fellow Jews to HIMSELF as the answer, as the SIGN by which He could and would cleanse the temple even more than this. Ultimately, there would be no need for ANY more sacrifices to be done at the temple, because HE would be the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the world. There would be no need for this temple either, or for the priests, because Jesus would open up heaven by His death and resurrection. He wasn’t just coming to get rid of a few merchants and dirty cows. He was coming to get rid of sin, guilt, and death itself. He was the fulfillment of all of it.
The disciples didn’t even understand what Jesus was talking about. But when Jesus died, his enemies did! They put a guard at the tomb to try and keep it from happening! It wasn’t until Jesus actually rose from the dead that the disciples then remembered this prophecy.
So think about it. Jesus had a hidden motive behind all of this anger. When Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. Then they believed the Scripture and what Jesus had said. Jesus spoke this years before His death and resurrection, purposefully, so that the disciples could have faith and understanding that Jesus’ death and resurrection was ALL ACCORDING TO THE PLAN. It gave Jesus an opportunity to prophesy the sign of His own death and resurrection and drop an anchor for the souls of the disciples to grab hold of in faith after all was said and done.
There are some things you just never forget in life. I was walking across the street with my Grandma Pankow on the way to the store. She was always so nice and sweet. A car drove by, and a child in the car made a strange face at me. So after the car drove by I stepped back into the middle of the road, put my hands on my head, wiggled my fingers, and stuck my tongue out at the car. My sweet little old grandma then grabbed me by the arm and yanked me back to the curb. She yelled at me and told me never to do that again. It was so out of character for her to do that, it really surprised me. But I deserved it.
This picture of the angry Jesus is kind of shocking to us. It isn’t the overall picture Jesus wants us to have of Him, but it’s still necessary. We see the kind Jesus. The forgiving Jesus. The merciful Jesus. We’d rather picture Him with a smile on His face. But sometimes we need to see the angry Jesus too. It reminds us that we are sinners. It reminds us that He is holy. It reminds us that we deserve God’s wrath too. We can’t face the holy God with tolerance. The holy God does not tolerate. We can only face Him with His own death and resurrection. And that’s what Jesus came to do for us, to receive the full anger of God on Himself on the cross in order to cleanse us of our sins. That’s the picture that the Holy Spirit paints for us to hold onto and believe. Christ crucified, for us and for our salvation. Amen.
