March 23, 2003 John 2:13-22
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
20 The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
What is it that bothers you most about politicians? One thing that bothers me is how the candidates try to appeal to everyone - and in the process try to tip toe around the issues. For once I wish the candidates would just say, “this is what I believe. Deal with it!” But that doesn’t happen too often anywhere any more. It seems that since everyone is so afraid of getting sued or offending anyone that we have become afraid to say anything. Isn’t it refreshing then, to see Jesus take an opposite approach in today’s text?
It is Refreshing to See the Zeal of Jesus
I. For God’s house
I used to go to a very large church back in Wisconsin with about 500 members. It was a huge brick church - a very long church. I can recall several times getting irritated with my parents for choosing to sit in the back, especially when children were crying. Here we had all kinds of room up front to sit, but they had to sit in back. The church also used to have these huge brick pillars. Occasionally I would get stuck behind one of those pillars. Imagine spending a whole worship service behind a brick pillar. Not exactly a great way to worship. Those were the two main distractions to my worship.
Imagine if you had come to worship this morning, and Farmer Fred brought his cow. It’s calving season, so he figured he could just put old Bessie in back and keep a closer eye on her. Or imagine if little Sensitive Susie couldn’t bear to leave her pet dog at home - so she decided to bring it to church with her. Then imagine if Businessman Bill couldn’t keep his eyes off of the stock market - so he had to bring his laptop computer to plug into the outlet - making sure that he could keep up on the prices. Imagine what a scene that would be!
That’s basically what Jesus encountered at Jerusalem! It was the time of the Passover - one of the three annual festivals - where all of the Jews came back to Jerusalem to celebrate. It was a time to remember the great deliverance that God had granted the Israelites in the Exodus. It was a time to look forward to the sacrifice of the Savior that was to come. Then someone got the wise idea, “since all these foreigners need ceremonially clean sheep, doves, and cows, why not set up a market right at the temple?” There were cows and sheep penned up right in the house of God - with the smell of manure running rampant - the lowing of the cattle, the cooing of the doves, and the baaing of the sheep.
Another thing. Many of the Jewish pilgrims used their Passover visit as the time to pay their annual temple tax, which the temple authorities insisted had to be paid with a certain silver half shekel coin (since the money they brought had heathen inscriptions on it). And so Jewish moneychangers set up shop right in the temple, where for a price they would exchange the Roman coins you had in your pocket for the silver coin of the temple. How in the world could anyone concentrate on a worship service with cows and sheep running around, not to mention money changers haggling for a better price?
But something else bothered Jesus even more. Do you remember what God told Moses when he approached the burning bush? “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” God wanted Moses to have a sense of reverence and awe - for he was standing on holy ground! Yet here they were allowing cows to run rampant on God’s holy ground! The teachers of the Law were allowing money changers to use God’s house as a means for personal gain. They had turned his house into a den of robbers. What was worse was that nobody did anything about it! They were more concerned about the bottom line - what will make money! What will be easiest for the visitors! They never thought to ask, “what will give glory to God!”
What a breath of fresh air - literally - it must have been - when Jesus made a whip then and sent the cattle and sheep out of the temple! Jesus knew that not only was this distracting the worshipers, but it was also disrespectful for the holiness of God to allow such things to happen within His gates. He had every right to be angry. Just imagine if someone brought a cow into your father’s house and let it go to the bathroom on your floor! Imagine if someone set up a business in your basement to swindle people out of their money? Wouldn’t you have the right to be angry as well? If you look at the scene through the Savior’s eyes, you can understand why he made a rope of cords and started swinging it with the words: “get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” How refreshing it must have been for Jesus to put these sinners back in their place.
Wouldn’t it be refreshing for such an attitude to be prevalent in today’s society as well? Even within the church it seems many are mainly concerned with what the bottom line is - what will bring the people in - and what will pay the bills? As a result of this, many churches are remembered as, “oh, that’s the church that holds the great brunch during the fair”, or “that’s the church that has a real fun carnival,” instead of, “that’s where you can hear a good gospel sermon and it’s people are devoted to God’s Word.” At a voter’s meeting, members are more concerned with the financial report than they are the spiritual welfare of the church. Was that God’s purpose for the church? It also seems that people are so concerned with getting visitors in - that they will be willing to do anything. If Jayna wants a church that plays rock and roll - then we’ll sing “I wanna rock and roll all night” for our opening hymn. If Jim wants grandpa to be remembered for his card playing, then we’ll talk about card playing at his funeral. If the kids want to use Doritos and soda for the Lord’s Supper, then we’ll do it! Never once do people stop and consider, “is this respectful? Is this giving glory and honor to God?” Hardly ever do you see people become angry because of the lack of reverence for God in a worship service! Instead, we often are afraid to speak up for the glory and majesty of God!
Let’s get closer to home. How do you evaluate your worship? After returning home from church on Sunday morning, do you ever find yourself saying, “I didn’t like that service. None of the hymns were my favorites. There was so much baby noise I could hardly concentrate. The pastor’s sermon was way too long. And, my goodness, I wonder whether the organist was wearing mittens”? Who’s at the center of that view of worship? I am. What I think of worship is what counts. That’s the attitude toward worship that Jesus condemned in ancient Jerusalem and still condemns today. Instead of asking, “what’s in it for me?”, it would be better to ask, “did that worship service glorify God? Did it help me to get a stronger hold on God’s grace?” Could it be that Jesus needs to overturn our hearts and set us straight on what is really important? That’s why Jesus was so angry with what was happening in the temple. It wasn’t giving glory to God in GOD’S house.
II. For our salvation
Earlier I painted politicians as being wishy washy. This isn’t always the case. There are occasions where politicians take a very strong and clear stand against something. This isn’t always the case, but sometimes - maybe he is getting paid by a special interest group to have a certain law pass. So he has a secret purpose for doing something - which is then called a “hidden agenda.” Jesus said what he said and did what he did because He had a great zeal for His Father’s honor. But this wasn’t the only reason he lashed out at the money changers and cattle salesmen. Jesus had what we might call a “hidden agenda” in cleaning out the temple. But it wasn’t for a devious or self centered purpose - it was for a saving purpose.
This becomes obvious when we look at what Jesus did. When you begin a new job - you usually try to be on your best behavior. You wouldn’t think of insulting the boss. Your first day in school you wouldn’t have thought of spitting on the carpet. When candidates run for office - the last thing they try to do is insult the voters. Here we see Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry, and he certainly seemed to break all the rules for how to win friends and influence people. Instead of schmoozing the religious leaders of his day - Jesus stepped on their toes. When Jesus chased out the money changers, He was stepping on the religious leaders’ toes - doing something that they should have done. So they demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
By this point in Jesus’ ministry, the Jews should have known what gave Jesus the authority to do this. John the Baptist had been steadily telling the people, “Jesus is the Christ.” If Jesus would have performed some miracle at this point, it would have been like throwing pearls before the swine - they just would have denied the miracle anyway and claimed that Jesus was doing it by the power of Satan. So Jesus just said to them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” Obviously, they weren’t going to tear down the temple, so this answer only made them more angry. But that was Jesus’ hidden agenda! Jesus could use the anger of the chief priests to eventually lead the people to cry, “crucify him!” If Jesus could end up at the cross - then He could be the scapegoat of God’s wrath and die for the sins of the people!
You can see Jesus’ master plan unfold the closer Jesus’ drew to his crucifixion. In Mark 14:55-59 it says, The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death, but they did not find any. Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.’” Eventually, the Jews used these very words to send Jesus to the cross! Isn’t that amazing? On the surface, this looks like a very unloving thing that Jesus did - to upend these tables and chase the cattle salesmen out of the temple. But in the end, you can see what a loving thing it was! Jesus did it so that He could end up at the cross and die for our sins - so He could be punished for the times that we didn’t stand up for the truth! Jesus did it so that he could take our sins of self centered worship on his shoulders! It was this crucifixion that ended up in the ultimate cleansing. When Jesus died on the cross - it eliminated the need to have any more sheep or cattle slaughtered. As Hebrews 7:27 says, He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. When Jesus was crucified - it cleansed our temples of any sin that we had every thought, spoken, or committed. So Jesus cleansed the temple for our salvation!
Do you know what really amazes me - is how well the Jews really understood what Jesus was saying here. The day after Jesus was crucified, they went to Pilate and said, “Sir, we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. They knew Jesus was talking about his own death and resurrection - and they tried to stop it! Try as they may, try as they might - they could have put five million troops outside of that tomb - there was no way that they could have stopped Jesus from rising from the dead. God says that His Word does not return to him void. When Jesus predicted it - there was no way that anything else could happen! The angel came - rolled back the stone - and Jesus rose - just as He said!
This is what broke the devil’s back. With this basis of forgiveness - through the destruction and resurrection of Jesus’ temple - Jesus had now paved the way to our salvation! I might compare it to buying a prefab piece of furniture. Several years ago I bought an entertainment center. All of the wood was already cut. All of the directions were neatly laid out. The hard part was done. All I had to do was follow the instructions to build my entertainment center. It was really quite easy (for once!). That’s what Jesus death and resurrection do for us. All of the price is paid - all sins are forgiven. The blood of Christ wiped away the stench of death and the grip of Satan from your dead body. This is what enables God to make temples out of our tombs. Now it is simple for God. All God must do is apply that forgiveness to our souls - to give us faith in Jesus as our Savior. That’s what makes Baptism so powerful! Through the simple Word of God working through the water of your baptism, God builds new temples - temples of the Holy Spirit. As Paul says, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? When the Holy Spirit enters your body - and Jesus’ forgiveness is applied to your soul - it’s as if God has made you a whole new creation - perfect and holy in His sight - able to live God pleasing lives as well. All of this is possible because Jesus cleansed the temple - causing the crucifixion of His temple in our place.
When the elections come up this spring, we will basically have to choose between two or three candidates for different positions. The problem with elections is that we usually don’t like everything about anyone we vote for. We might like the pro-life stance of one, while we like the economic stance of another. And so we’re torn between the two - and we have to vote on one that we think is most important - and put up with the faults of the one we voted for. We never can find the perfect candidate!
Isn’t it great then, that God chose Jesus as our representative! He always said the right thing! He always made the right decision! He always did the right thing! There’s nothing about him not to like! In his cleansing of the temple this was made abundantly clear. He wasn’t afraid to speak the truth. He wasn’t afraid to act for the truth. He wasn’t afraid to die for the truth! It is refreshing to see the zeal of Jesus. His zeal restored honor to God’s house. His zeal earned our salvation. Without His zeal - we would be on our way to hell,but we’re not. Thanks be to Christ. Amen.
