Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this morning is from the Gospel according to John, the second chapter:
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
In our passage today, we see Jesus doing a very good thing, namely continuing to fulfill the Law of God for our benefit. Here He goes to Jerusalem to offer up the sacrifices required in the Temple of the Lord. Not that Jesus has sin that needs to be atoned for, but that, according to the Law, He still yet sacrifices His offerings for the sake of the atonement of the sin of the world. If Jesus did not offer up these sacrifices, then He would be guilty of breaking the Law, and thus the sacrifice of His life upon the cross could not have been accepted on our behalf.
But, our gracious God, even demanding the death of an animal, gives Jesus the charge to obey all of the Law to fulfill all righteousness. So, when Jesus goes the Temple, He’s not necessarily mad that people are trading money. That things are traded in the house of God is not a surprise. In fact, in some ways it might even be necessary.
The law of the Pharisees, taken from the Law of God, forbade that the Jews had anything with an image on it. Yet, the Roman Empire demanded that they do their trade with Roman currency. That currency had the face of Caesar on it, which, of course, then, is forbidden by the Pharisaical Law. Complicated yet? This was a sin to the Jews that also had to be atoned for, certainly. But this was even more complicated by the fact the Jews could not bring such Roman currency into the Temple. That would have been an abomination.
So, they had currency exchangers. You could bring your Roman drachmas and exchange them for Temple shekels before entering the Temple so that you could give your monetary offering. And soon, that developed into being able to buy the sacrifice you needed because you didn’t bring it from home. Now, this was wrong in and of itself, for the Law of God said that you brought your sacrifice to the altar, not that you bought your sacrifice at the altar. It was hard to get your sheep, your bulls, your birds, your food, from your home all the way to the Temple in Jerusalem. It was. But, some, thinking this too burdensome, decided to lighten the load, and allow the Jews to buy their sacrifice at the altar of the Lord, thus even defiling their very sacrifice there.
But, to make this worse, the money exchangers would bilk those sacrificing out of their money by weighing down the scales. This would sort of be like us putting at ATM in the narthex in case you forgot money for the offering (which we would never do or demand that you put money into the plate), and then charging you twenty bucks per transaction. We would be taking your money and then taking your money again. That’s not what the Church, that’s not what the Temple was about.
So, no wonder Jesus was so upset when He went into the Temple. He went with the desire to do good in the name of the Lord, to fulfill the righteous Law of God, and He saw those who put the Law into the mud and the dung of the streets. The Temple in Jerusalem is there to give people a mere glimpse of the Temple that is in heaven, awaiting its descent in the New Creation, where it will be among the people all of the time. That Temple, the book of Hebrews tells us, is Jesus Himself.
The Temple points us to Jesus. Where the Jews made sacrifices for the atonement for their sins, we now see the one who made atonement for the sins of the world. Where we see the beauty of gilded walls, we now see the beauty of the One whose blood was more precious than gold. Where we see a curtain standing between the priest and God, we now see Jesus, who tore the curtain, bringing to everyone access to the Father through His own pleas for mercy upon us. The Temple is there to point us to Jesus.
And Jesus sees the abuses happening in the Temple and He flips out. This is a righteous anger, not an anger that is undeserved. In Jesus’ anger, He does not sin, but does the good work of scourging the Temple, bringing it into obedience to God’s Law. We look at this and wonder if we can do the same, and the answer is no. We tend never to be righteously angry. When we are angry, we tend to sin. We might be rightly angry at a situation, but, as I’ve always seen it happen, we then go on to break the Eighth commandment, lying about someone or not speaking well of them. We break the sixth commandment, murdering them or hating them in our hearts. Or we break whatever else for the sake of our thoughts of righteousness.
But Jesus felt no such temptation to sin. He was angry at what His people did to His Father’s house, which was indicating what they thought about Him and what they would even do to Him, but more, what they felt about the mercy and help of the Father. They didn’t care about God’s Law, the Law that pointed them to the sacrifice that would come to take away all of their sin. They cared about the convenience; they cared about making money. Those were their gods, not Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The idols of their bellies, the idols of their hearts, the idols of their minds were their gods.
And this is usually where our gods lie, too, in our bellies, our hearts, our minds. We listen to them more than we listen to the Son of our Father, Jesus Christ. We want them to be our gods, because then we are satisfied. And when we focus on the little gods we create, whether it is sex, money, power, control, our way, television, movies, sports, family, stuff, we find we will do anything to appease them. Our Great God has not called us to appease our gods, though, nor has He called us to appease Him. He has called us to listen to His Son, Jesus Christ.
We never appease God, but we leave our sin behind us through repentance and absolution. And this absolution is given only and ever through the death of the Son of God. In Christ’s death, all righteousness was finally, for all people, and for all time, fulfilled. Christ took upon the sin of the world and crucified it with Him so that we might be found reconciled to the Father. This is why He even points to Himself with the Jews in this passage.
“Destroy this Temple,” He says, “and in three days I will raise it up.” Jesus Christ is the Temple for all people. In Him, the sacrifices to the Father are made. In Him, we may speak with God. In Him, we find the food and drink that sustain us for all life. In Him, in that Temple, we find community and salvation in the water which washes us clean.
You see, Jesus is the better Temple. Though He was angry at what His brothers did to the Temple that was in Jerusalem, it was only and ever pointing to Himself. And if the Jews would do this to a Temple that would be utterly destroyed after only 80-some years, what does that say they would do to the everlasting Temple they cannot see?
What would they do to Jesus? What would they do to the one who would keep the Law on their behalf? What would they do to this man? They, for thinking that He would draw all men to Himself and not to their petty law, would crucify Him, beat Him, whip Him, crown Him with thorns, give Him sour wine, and watch Him die. For all that they hated Him, they killed Him. And I, and you, would have done the same.
But, faith, a gift from the Holy Spirit, shows us this was necessary for the salvation of the world. Jesus’ death was necessary, and even through that death, Jews were drawn to Him, converted from their legalism to the righteousness won for them by grace through faith. And so are we converted by Christ, turned from our desire to serve our gods, and given over to the Church, where God serves us by Word and Sacrament. In this place, God serves us, and He always will.
This is why it is a stumbling block to the Jews, because a God who serves you doesn't seem a God, He’s a servant. But that is our Lord, the servant of all men before He ever is served. And this is why it is folly to the Gentiles, for it doesn’t make sense to worship a God who died on a cross like a criminal, hanging naked for the world to see.
But, our God, our Jesus is the denuded God, having been stripped of all His worldly possessions, having given up every heavenly right. He stands upon that accursed tree with nothing in His hands but nails, and that is the greatest service we could ever have. For in His death, we find the death of death. And in His resurrection, we find life everlasting.
This is what Jesus promised the Jews that day of the scourging of the Temple. Life would come to all who would believe in Him, the True Temple. Life would come through the Temple, through Jesus, who was pure, who was righteous, who was clean, who cannot be abused. Life would come through Him who died and was raised on the third day. And so He was raised. And so life has come to you, even now. You have life eternal in Him, now and always. In that very Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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