Cleaning Day
John 2:12-22
Imagine if you will the most perfect church setting. Perhaps it is Christmas eve – and the sanctuary is decorated beautifully. Very warm and welcoming.
This is a special time.
Sure, you can come to church any Sunday, but this time is set aside for wondrous events and much-expected miracles.
As you arrive there is a man standing at the entrance to the parking lot offering you a parking pass.
The pass will cost you $2.00, but your car will be safe for the entire service. No, I’m afraid you can’t park on the street today – it’s been closed off in honour of the service.
Entering the foyer you find warm and welcoming greeters offering you an order of service. Only $2.00, these brightly coloured and informative brochures are a must. In fact, you are unable to enter the sanctuary without one.
As you walk past, one of the greeters notices that you have your favourite bible with you. “Is that an official New Westminster Citadel Bible sir?” you are asked. “No? Well, you may leave yours with us for a small $2.00 storage fee. There are daily rental official Citadel Bibles available for only $2.00 at the table in the sanctuary.”
As you settle comfortably into your padded pew an usher quietly comes up and asks you, “Excuse me Sir, have you paid the centre aisle tax? Could I see your receipt? If not, you will have to move to the outer edge or the very rear. If you would like to come with me I can arrange a centre aisle tax payment, perhaps as a direct withdrawel for you – it’s only $2.00 per week.”
The service begins and it is time for the offering. The ushers pass the offering plate and look upon you with scorn as you place your cash in the plate. “Excuse me Sir, is that Canadian money? I’m afraid only official New Westminster Citadel currency is acceptable as an offering here.
Didn’t you read your colourful and informative brochure?
Please proceed to the table in the rear where you may exchange your cash – today’s rate is only $1.35 for every Citadel buck.
The service concludes with a call to the mercy seat. Overwhelmed with a desire to show your love for God, you come forward to this place of prayer.
A mercy seat counselor eagerly greets you. “Welcome to this place of prayer Sir. How may I help you? For a prayer of praise and worship, please deposit $2.00 in the available basket. For a prayer of confession and repentance, $4.00; for a salvation prayer, $6.00 and for complete holiness, today only, $8.00.”
Kleenex is complimentary.
How would you like to attend that church?
How would Jesus react upon entering that church?
You see, in many ways that’s exactly the kind of scenario that Jesus encountered at the Temple in Jerusalem during that pass-over celebration so many years ago.
His father’s house is a place of prayer – and Jesus came to pray.
And when Jesus entered the outer courts – reserved for the Gentile worshippers – he saw a marketplace.
Practically a zoo!
And he got very angry indeed.
You know, I’ve heard people say that Jesus “lost it” that day – that he completely lost his temper and his cool – that he snapped!
This couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Jesus became angry at the abuse and injustice, but He never loses control. We don’t serve a God who “snaps” when things are going askew.
We’ve likely all lost our temper at some point and done something we regret. We may have physically struck out at someone or punched a wall.
We may have said hurtful things to people we care for.
We may have been rude and judgmental toward someone.
We’ve likely all done things in anger that we wish we could do-over.
Jesus never lost control.
Jesus did not leave the temple that day and ask Himself, “What was I thinking? That was way over the top!"
No. He knew exactly what He was doing the whole time.
He chose this method of direction and instruction for the children of God who were so very, very wrong.
I want to try to explain something this morning – so I’m going to walk through this scripture a bit.
You see, this is not an isolated historical event – interesting for it’s time but irrelevant today.
No.
It is very significant to us here today that Jesus became angry in the Temple – the House of the Lord – God’s dwelling place for the people of Israel.
This was the only place where humans could interact with the living God at that time. And even then only selected humans – the High Priests – could enter the Holy of Holies to commune with God.
This was the one place where you could place your sacrificial offering onto the altar and ask God to cleanse you from your sins.
Let’s look at the scripture again for a moment.
“When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”
Jesus selected this specific time to come to the Temple. Isn’t that interesting?
Passover is the Jewish celebration of their liberation from Egypt. It specifically celebrates the time when God had placed a judgment on Egypt that all 1st-born boys would be killed if the Hebrew people were not released. God told the Hebrews to kill a perfect male lamb and spread it’s blood on their door frames. Then, the angel of death would pass over their houses during the night of killing.
During the celebration of Passover people came from miles around to the Temple to praise God and offer their sacrifices.
Jesus selected this specific time – when the Temple would be bursting at the seams – to bring this teaching to His people.
“In the temple courts He found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.”
This would have been in the outer courts – the areas reserved for Gentiles to worship. Gentiles were non-Jews and as such were seen as being somewhat further down the spiritual pecking order. They were not allowed to worship in the court of the Jews, but rather had to stay in a larger outer area.
This is the area that the Jewish religious leaders of the day set up their market.
Now many people use this scripture to show that selling anything in church on a Sunday is a bad thing. No money should change hands.
That would be simplifying the point.
You see, the selling of cattle, sheep and doves and the exchanging of money is not the problem here.
Each person coming to the temple was required to bring an offering – each offering was for a specific purpose.
If you were a hotel owner, and you needed to bring a lamb for a sacrifice, where would you get one? It’s one thing to say that a perfect male lamb must be sacrificed to cleanse you from a specific sin, but what if you don’t have any lambs?
Selling animals for sacrifice could have been a very good and useful service to the people – but it was abused and evil.
They were selling animals alright, but not always perfect ones. They often sold the animals that were no longer useful in the herd because of disease or injury.
On top of that, these men seized the opportunity to make some quick profits and they sold animals at greatly inflated prices.
On top of even that, these men insisted that only “temple animals” were suitable for sacrifice. So that even if you did bring your own perfect male to sacrifice, you would be told it was not good enough – you have to buy one of theirs.
They used the Lord’s house, and the people’s understanding of their need to repent through sacrificial offerings, as a way to line their pockets.
Evil.
What about the others, sitting at tables exchanging money?
Well, people came from all around to Jerusalem during Passover. They came with the currency of their land – and each geographical area had their own.
It made good sense to have a place where a common currency could be bought through exchange.
Again, not a bad idea to help people bring their offering to God.
Money exchange could have been a very good and useful service to the people – but it was abused and evil.
They exchanged money alright, but on top of that, these men took the opportunity to charge huge interest rates on the exchange.
On top of that, they claimed that only specific temple money could be used so that even if you had the currency of Jerusalem you would have to change it.
They made spectacular profits off of the people as they came to worship.
Evil.
Many people say that money is the root of all evil – but that’s simply not true.
Money never hurt anybody.
Money never helped anybody either.
The correct saying is actually from scripture – 1 Timothy 6:10 and it says, “For the LOVE OF MONEY is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
It’s the love of money. Jesus said that the only things we’re supposed to love is our God and our neighbours – didn’t He?
When we love money, we become controlled by it and we wind up wanting nothing else.
Money never hurt anybody – even on a Sunday.
But money lovers hurt people.
Money never helped anybody either – but people who love the Lord their God and who love their neighbours help people.
So Jesus saw all of this instantly upon entering the temple courts.
Jesus didn’t walk in and see a marketplace – He walked in and saw the evil blackness of the human heart devoured by greed and the love of money.
Jesus saw that these men were more interested in lining their pockets with gold than with bringing the spotless offering to the King.
Jesus saw that these men were more concerned with their own profit margins than with the salvation of their neighbours.
And so He got angry, and He made Himself 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. To those who sold doves he said, ‘Get out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!”
He drove them all out.
“Take a hike, get lost, shut this place down!”
It reminds me of one of my favourite scriptures from Malachi 1:10.
You see the priests in the time of Malachi (400 years before Christ) were involved in the same sort of thing. They were bringing less than perfect offerings.
They were allowing injured and diseased animals to be sacrificed to God rather than the very best they had to offer. There is some understanding among Biblical scholars that they may have even accepted money along with sick animals as a sort of pay-off for the less than perfect offering.
God didn’t like that at all.
And God told Malachi to warn the temple priests in this way, He said, “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you.”
God was angry with the priests of Malachi’s time.
And Jesus was furious with them in our scripture for today.
He was consumed by zeal for His Father’s house!
Indeed, I don’t have a hard time believing that Jesus had the very same sentiment running through His mind as He was flipping tables and snapping whips.
“Just shut the temple doors! Your fires are useless! I am not pleased with you!”
The Jewish authorities were upset as you can imagine, and they asked Jesus, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
I think they knew the answer to this question before they asked it.
If they didn’t believe Jesus had the authority to trash their little market place, they would have had him arrested immediately, don’t you think?
But they knew… somewhere deep inside they knew that this man carried power in His heart.
They knew He had the authority.
Jesus said, “destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
The Jews didn’t understand that Jesus was talking about His own body – about His own death on the cross and His resurrection on the third day.
They believed that the temple – forty-six years in the making – was the one and only place that could ever be considered the meeting place of God.
They believed that only animals could be sacrificed to cleanse us from our sins.
Jesus changed all that.
When Christ can to this earth it was - simply put – to offer himself as a living sacrifice for all of us. He lived among us, was tempted, was sinless and thus perfect, suffered and died on that cross to cleanse us of our sins.
He was the final pass-over lamb.
And upon that event the Temple as a building became obsolete.
Now, there is no need for a special meeting place because it is possible for the living God to reside within you and I.
When you accept Christ into your life as your Lord and Saviour you do exactly that – and the Holy Spirit resides in you as your counselor and guide.
Christ became the Temple of God, and we are each in our own way that same Temple.
Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.”
It is vitally important that we look upon ourselves as the Temple of God. He resides within us – therefore we must be pure and clean.
Jesus can’t live in a dirty house – it’s time for spring cleaning.
Let’s take a look at ourselves – at the witness that we have within us.
The house of the Lord has to be a clean house – there are no in-betweens.
The perfect and spotless offering is you – what is in your heart?
You know, Paul calls us to be living sacrifices – it’s really what our corporate covenant is all about.
But you know what they say about living sacrifices don’t you? They tend to crawl off the altar!
When Jesus walks in the temple of your heart, what does He see?
WHAT DO YOU BRING TO THE TABLE?
Only the very best could be in the original temple – from the furnishings to the offering. Only the best would do.
Anything less than the best cheapens the temple – makes it less than it is intended to be.
Do you allow things into God’s temple that cheapen it?
Do you allow pornography to stain your mind and emotions?
Do you allow greed to control your heart and your wallet?
Do you allow anger to drive your responses?
Do you allow selfish ambition to determine your priorities?
What have you placed on the table?
What are you trying to profit from?
You know, as the temple of the living God there is a very important role that you have to play.
You need to be welcoming to the Gentiles of this day.
When people don’t know the Lord, all they see is you.
All they see is the outside courts of the temple of the Living God.
When they look at you, “Christian”, what will they see?
Will they see a marketplace looking to make a deal?
Will they see a moneychanger seeking a quick profit?
Or, will they see a person – a place – where God is exalted and lifted high?
Will they see a person who loves them as much as they love themselves?
Will they see a person willing to welcome them into their heart?
Take a look into your heart this morning. What have you got on the table?
Would Jesus smile when He looks there?
Or, would he prepare a whip of cords?
