Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-february-28-2023
John 2:13-22
Jesus Clears the Temple
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove them all from the temple courts, 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 They 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.
This is a story that appears in all four of the gospels, so it’s pretty clear that it’s one that impressed itself on all of the original disciples. You might remember that in past Reflections, we’ve cited scholars and historians who say that a big part of Jesus’ anger was caused by the corruption that had grown up around the practices of selling sacrificial animals and changing money in the temple.
It seems that the practice was originally a service to worshippers, but one that turned into a money grab. Eventually, the priests at the temple would only allow the sacrifice of animals that were bought from their ‘official vendors.’ That created a monopoly, so the vendors could jack up the prices – some historians say as much as 80 times more than the same animals would cost outside the temple. The priests got rich on kickbacks, but ordinary worshippers were being gouged, and that seems to have provoked Jesus to chase out the merchants and money-changers.
John writes that this confrontation with the merchants took place in “the temple courts.” The temple itself was a big building, surrounded by two concentric sets of walls. There was an inner courtyard where only Jewish men were allowed to go. Then there was an outer courtyard, where gentiles and Jewish women could pray. Only the priests and the most important rulers ever went into the temple building itself.
The historians say it was probably in the outer courtyard that the animal vendors and moneychangers would have been allowed to set up shop.
Most of the time, it was probably pretty quiet in the temple area. But a few designated times each day, people would gather in large numbers as close to the temple as possible to chant their prayers out loud.
The scholars say it was probably during one of the quiet times when Jesus chased away the merchants and money changers. We can imagine what a shock would have gone through the crowd in the temple courts when Jesus started shouting and chasing the merchants around with a whip of cords.
It seems possible that this cleansing of the temple got a different reaction from the temple leadership than from the ordinary people who were there. For the leadership, the temple was the seat of their power and authority. It was a place where things were to be done “decently and in order,” as we would say. So for Jesus to make such a commotion would be shocking and threatening to the bigshots. But the ordinary worshippers might have seen things differently – they probably resented the price-gouging on the sacrificial animals and temple coins. They might have cheered Jesus on. That would have made the whole thing worse, from the perspective of the leadership. The cleansing of the temple would have been a subversive act, one that undermined the power of the religious authorities.
So it comes as no surprise that the temple leadership would demand to know by what authority Jesus was doing these things. They actually demanded a “miraculous sign” to prove that Jesus had that authority. But Jesus gives them an answer that surprises them. He tells them to destroy the temple, and that he’ll rebuild it in three days.
We know – and the passage reminds us – that Jesus was talking about his impending death and resurrection. But the temple leadership had no idea about that. Rebuilding the temple in three days would have seemed ridiculous to them – the rulers of the Herod family had been rebuilding and expanding the temple for 46 years.
But to Jesus, the temple had completely different significance than it had to the Jewish leadership. To the leadership, the temple symbolized the history and traditions of the Hebrew people. But to Jesus, the temple was the place where God and humankind came together.
For a thousand years, God and his people had met at this one particular place in Jerusalem. But now, God and humankind had come together in a very different way – in the person of Jesus himself. So Jesus was the new temple. We understand this because it’s an accepted part of Christian theology. But to the Jews of Jesus’ day and to their leaders, this would have made no sense at all.
And for us as followers of Jesus, there’s another important step to be taken, theologically speaking. If the body of Jesus was being established as the new temple, and if we are the body of Jesus in the world of our time, then we are supposed to be the point of contact between God and humankind now. With the birth of Jesus, the temple stopped being a building and became a person. With his death and resurrection and ascension to heaven, the temple stopped being one person and became a community of people following Jesus and acting in his name.
To me, at least, that’s pretty intimidating. Everyone we meet is meant to be encountering Jesus in us. We’re meant to be a point of contact between that person and the God we love and serve.
Very few of us can honestly say that we always take that role seriously. But maybe that would be a good discipline during this season of Lent – the practice of reminding ourselves constantly that we’re intended to be the new temple, where people encounter the love of God in a new and transforming way.
Let’s pray. Lord, we invite you to use your Holy Spirit to remind us every day that we are meant to be the point of contact between you and humankind. Help us live in such a way that every contact with another person becomes an opportunity to show them your deep and powerful love for them. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The other readings for today are 34 and 146; Deuteronomy 9:1-12; and Hebrews 3:1-11. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
Recent Comments