A Light Has Come: the Temple Incident

Sermon Intro:

A Light Has Come. We continue this morning on our journey through the Gospel of Mark.

The declaration from chapter 1 still echoes: And the Word became flesh… Jesus holds together human and divine. Jesus reveals who God is and what is like.

And then Jesus’ call to “come and see.” Come and see what this embodied God is doing… Last week, we saw Jesus at a wedding, turning water into wine, declaring that a new, a messianic age was beginning. But also only letting a few people hear the announcement.

This week, we see Jesus in a very public act. Some have called this the “Cleansing of the Temple” or, I like the phrase “The Temple Incident.”

Before we read the text together… I’d like to point out four things that I think will help us listen better:

Four things: Occasion, Place, Chronology and Location

Our reading will begin with these words… “It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”

Occasion: Passover

What about the context of it being Passover?

We won’t go into all the details, but Passover was a remembrance of God’s deliverance of the people during the plagues. And Passover was originally the blood of a lamb spread on the doorposts of the Israelites homes… and John has already told us that Jesus is the Lamb of God.

Deuteronomy 16:16 CEB

16 Three times a year every male among you must appear before the presence of the Lord your God in the location he will select: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths. They must not appear before the Lord’s presence empty-handed.

So at Passover, pilgrims would arrive, needing food and lodging, but also needing to buy animals for the sacrifice. Jerusalem would swell with the influx.

That brings us to the second thing...

Place: Jerusalem

A couple of key things here:

In Matthew & Mark, Jesus only goes to Jerusalem once… and that is for the events we now think of as the Passion, or Holy Week.

In Luke, Jesus will go up to Jerusalem as a preteen, and then not again until closer to the end.

In John, Jesus will make three trips to Jerusalem for Passover and this is one of the reasons we get the idea that Jesus’ ministry was three years long.

And that brings us to the third thing...

Chronology: late or early in Jesus’ ministry?

In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke), The Temple Incident happens in the final week of Jesus’ ministry.

John, however, locates it near the very beginning.

So, you may, like me, think of this as the inciting incident that gets the religious establishment upset and ready to accuse Jesus and have Him arrested. Part of that is because the synoptics also highlight Jesus’ anger at the injustice and dishonesty of the traders or the sellers. But John invites us to look at the story from a slightly different vantage point. We’ll explore that more later.

Now, none of the gospel writers are trying to tell us that Jesus only set foot in Jerusalem during the moments they choose to mention. That isn’t the point at all. Each gospel writer tells the story using a chronology that suits their theological agenda. As would make sense.

Audience:

A reminder that John is writing after the destruction of this temple. And, after the death & resurrection of Jesus.

Both of these were pretty momentous. John himself experienced the unthinkable death of his teacher and friend. And then the post-resurrection events…

John’s readers have heard these eyewitness accounts, but have also seen their own unthinkable event… the Temple, the one that took decades and decades to build. Has been destroyed.

So, on the occasion of Passover,

in the city of Jerusalem,

with John’s chronology of this event early in Jesus’ ministry,

writing to people who are still trying to make sense of the Roman destruction of the Temple…

bearing these things in mind,

and asking God to speak to us through this text,

as Linda comes to read for us, would you stand for the reading of God’s word?

Scripture Reading

John 2:13–22 CEB

13 It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 He found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. 15 He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. 16 He said to the dove sellers, “Get these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place of business.” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written, Passion for your house consumes me. 18 Then the Jewish leaders asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things? What miraculous sign will you show us?” 19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.” 20 The Jewish leaders replied, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days?” 21 But the temple Jesus was talking about was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he had said, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

In this text, we see Jesus make a dramatic announcement.

A dramatic announcement: Jesus, disruptive and destructive (squirm)

Now, here we have to grapple with this right up front: Jesus uses physical force, even violence in this incident.

And, if you are someone who appreciates Jesus’ nonviolent approach in other stories, this story becomes problematic.

And the temptation is to explain it away. Or to use it to justify our own use of violence. Or some combination of the two.

I’m not interested in explaining this story away. Nor am I interested in preaching something to justify our use of violence. Thinking about how and when violence is used, or is deemed “necessary” is a worthwhile conversation, but that’s not what we’re exploring this morning.

Instead, I want us to keep asking what Jesus is doing, what is Jesus announcing by His words and his deeds?

He is announcing disruption. If last week announced the arrival of the messianic age, of the Kingdom of God, this week reminds us that this new age, this new kingdom will require disrupting the status quo. If Jesus is ushering in a new moment, the old moments might have to end.

And He doesn’t announce this quietly and calmly. He makes a whip. He turns over tables and scatters the coins. He chases the animals, and with them, the people.

(Pastor Brian Zahnd tweeted this earlier this week: [read from slide])

I think it matters that there is no invitation for his disciples or for us to “go and do likewise” - we are however invited to mimic Jesus and to “take up a cross” …

If we see a system that needs overturning, can we participate in that? Yes. I think so.

However, we are not Jesus.

We are not Word made flesh.

We are not holding together in our person both humanity and divinity.

So, perhaps, we have to proceed with some caution before flipping tables.

And, perhaps we need to ask whether we’re more likely to show up in the story as the righteous embodiment of God, or the people seated at the tables. In other words, what tables do we sit at that would God like to flip over or that God is flipping over?

What systems do we participate in, and even benefit from, that are not meant to last? And that aren’t what God desires for creation?

If I don’t find myself in the story seated at one of the tables, the next place I’m likely to find myself is with the Jewish leaders who ask Jesus for His credentials. When Jesus shows up all disruptive and destructive, don’t you find yourself joining the religious establishment and saying things like…

Jesus, what do you think you are doing? Who do you think you are?

Well… maybe it’s just me. But those are, in the end, the right questions. What IS Jesus doing here? And who is Jesus?

In the synoptic gospels’ telling of this incident, Jesus is motivated by righteous anger in the face of injustice. Sellers overcharging, moneychangers taking advantage of the poor and those who have travelled long distances.

But here in gospel, Jesus isn’t necessarily taking issue with those things, in fact, it appears that He walks into the Temple courts only to find the sacrificial system functioning as it’s been set up. But here Jesus is announcing that that whole system is going to be overturned. Gilberto Ruiz helps us here:

By disrupting the well-established and accepted economic practices of the temple, Jesus publicly reveals he is more than a pilgrim visiting the temple. He is Son of the God who dwells in that temple, and as such he has the authority to disrupt the temple’s usual activities. Gilberto Ruiz

A dramatic announcement: Jesus as Temple

What is going on when Jesus disrupts the whole Temple system in this act? What is He announcing?

Jesus is telling us that HE is the place where God dwells. That He is the new Temple.

Now, remember, John is writing to people whose religious life and life in general, has been centred around the Temple. Not just for the last few years, but for centuries - and in one way or another, from the very beginning.

Think about the history of “where God dwells”…

Beginning with the Tabernacle, we see God’s desire to dwell with humans. It’s an echo back to the Garden as well… where the initial design was that humanity live in close proximity and easy friendship with the divine.

The Tabernacle means that God can dwell with God’s people even while they’re on the move in the wilderness. God is with them. God dwells in a moveable spot so that wherever they go, God goes with them.

Eventually, when they are more settled, they build a Temple - a permanent spot where God can dwell in the midst of God’s people.

Remember Solomon builds the first Temple (we looked at the dedication of Solomon’s temple in the fall)

This temple was renovated by King Hezekiah who also restored worship there.

And the King Josiah organized repair of the temple and found the lost book of the Law,

That first Temple is ultimately plundered by the Babylonians and demolished.

The Temple Jesus visits, is Herod’s - begun in 20BC as more of a political move than a religious one. And so we hear the Jewish leaders say, “Destroy this temple? It took 46 years to build this temple.” In fact, it took longer than that....it was not completed until 64 AD… and it only stood complete for a handful of years, destroyed by the Romans in 70AD.

So when Jesus says, “Destroy this Temple and I’ll raise it up in three days”… that’s a pretty audacious claim.

It would seemed like a really strange thing to say… to Jesus’ disciples, to the Jewish leaders, and to any pilgrim in the Temple complex that day, preparing to celebrate Passover.

And so it’s no wonder then that John has to make the comment he does… John 2:21-22

John 2:21–22 CEB

21 But the temple Jesus was talking about was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he had said, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Even Jesus’ closest people cannot fathom what He means when He says what He says.

A dramatic announcement: that requires radical reinterpretation of things we thought we knew

The sign in this bit of John 2, doesn’t happen in the moment, but is foretold. And when the sign occurs - the death and resurrection of Jesus, it will invite the reinterpretation of the experience of seeing Jesus in the Temple.

His disciples, take what they know and try to interpret what’s going on in the moment. They find a thread in Psalm 69:9 where the idea of passion or zeal for God’s house is all-consuming. But later, after the unthinkable events of Jesus death and resurrection, they will re-think this moment. They will reconsider what it is that Jesus meant - both by His words AND by His actions.

Jesus takes the traditions and applies them to himself. He is the reality to which the Temple itself points. His death and resurrection will be the reality to which the whole Passover celebration points. N. T. Wright

Have you ever experienced this reinterpretation?

You think you understand something - or maybe you cannot make sense of it - but later, after something happens, you can go back and see it differently. You can make sense of what didn’t make sense. Or, you see what you thought you understood in a new way.

This is exactly what John is talking about. But he’s doing it on two levels… he’s telling the story of what happened to him and the other disciples - how AFTER the resurrection, they realized what Jesus had been talking about on this strange day.

But also, John is writing to people who are living after the destruction of the actual Temple where these events took place. They are trying to make sense of their faith and their lives and their history. And it doesn’t yet make sense. And John is, in his gospel, reminding them that the Word made flesh changed everything… but they may not yet be able to grasp it all. So he is going to lay out what the Word made flesh did and said and how He revealed who God is. But also, John is going to invite his readers along to put together how encountering the Word is to encounter the One who holds together human and divine. Jesus reveals who God is and what is like. And Jesus calls us to “come and see” what this embodied God is doing… and to join in.

I wonder where you see the contrast of belief and unbelief,

where you sense the call to bear witness to what God is like and what God is doing

and we you are hearing invitation to live as a child of God,

abiding in the One who is abundance, who is grace upon grace.

And so, what about us...

What do we do with the dramatic announcement of the Temple Incident?

Where do you see yourself most in the story?

Is there a table God is flipping?

Is there something that you thought you knew, but that you are now reconsidering? Is there some reinterpretation of who God is and what that embodied God is doing?

Is there an invitation to see Jesus as the place where God dwells with us? To encounter Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us. As Word made flesh?

Let’s pray

Revelation 21:3 CEB

3 I heard a loud voice from the throne say, “Look! God’s dwelling is here with humankind. He will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples. God himself will be with them as their God.