3rd Sunday in Lent March 19, 2006 Series B
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, you sent your Son, Jesus the Christ, to reveal you kingdom and to redeem us from sin and death. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, increase our awareness in the significance of Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, and deepen our faith and trust in the saving grace his cross offers to us. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
Richard Jensen, in his book, The Crucified Ruler, begins his commentary on our Gospel lesson with this rather strange story.
“The young girl lay bound on the altar. It was she who had been chosen to be the sacrifice made to the gods on behalf to the people this year. She was terrified. She watched every movement that the priest made throughout the ceremony. And then, at the climax of the ritual, the priest moved toward her with knife held high. Terror flooded her consciousness.
And then the knife came down. It plunged into her heart. In just a few moments, she was dead. Her blood flowed over the altar, dripping down to the ground. The major sacrifice of the year was now complete. The people breathed a great sigh of relief. Perhaps now, perhaps with this sacrifice, the gods would smile upon them for another year.
This is a strange story, to say the least. Strange, but true,” Jensen concludes. “Many different peoples in many different cultures in the course of human history have made use of a human sacrifice in order to please the gods.” End quote.
To be sure, as I shared with my confirmation students in our study of the Old Testament, some cultures and peoples living as neighbors to Israel, practiced child sacrifice. In fact, some Biblical scholars believe that this practice is what gave rise to the story of God testing Abraham’s faith, by asking him to sacrifice Isaac.
We know the story well. Isaac was the SON GOD had promised would be born to Abraham and Sarah, even when it seemed impossible for them to conceive a child due to their age. Isaac was the HOPE of Abraham and Sarah, that from their offspring, God would bring forth a great people, too many to number. And then God tested Abraham’s faith, by asking him to sacrifice Isaac.
So Abraham led his young son up a tall mountain, where he built and altar to God. The two of them gathered wood for a fire. And when Isaac asked his father where they would find the animal to sacrifice, Abraham took Isaac, bound him and placed him on the altar. Then he took his knife, and just as he was about to plunge it into his son, God shouted, STOP! God said, "I do not desire the death of Isaac!
So Abraham unbound Isaac, and discovered that there was a ram caught in a thicket of briars. Abraham took the ram, laid it on the altar, and sacrificed it – IN ISAAC’S PLACE.
Two things might be gained from this story. First, is the fact that God’s cry to stop Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac was not just an indication of God’s grace that was extended to Abraham and Isaac. Rather, it was an indication to all of Abraham’s descendents, that God did not desire child sacrifice, and that his descendents should not engage in that practice.
Secondly, since this story records that God provided a ram for Abraham to sacrifice in place of Isaac, it was interpreted as an endorsement for the religious and cultic practice of sacrificing animals in thanksgiving for God’s blessings, and as an offering to God for the atonement of sins.
This was reinforced in the story of the first Passover. As the last of the ten plagues was about to claim the first-born of all of Egypt, due to the Pharaoh’s refusal heed God’s demand to free Israel from bondage, the people of Israel were instructed by God to take an unblemished lamb for each household, sacrifice it, and spread its blood over the door posts of their homes. And when the angel of death came, it passed over the homes of Israel, marked by the blood of the lamb, sacrificed for their deliverance.
The lamb was then roasted and eaten, along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, in a meal of thanksgiving for God’s grace and Israel’s deliverance from bondage. And that meal, that celebration of God’s redeeming grace, has, since that first Passover, been celebrated by Israel, even to this day. It is the most important festival of the Jewish faith.
At the time of Jesus, the religious practice of offering animal sacrifice was such a part of Israel’s religious devotion to God, that every Jew was expected to make an annual visit to Jerusalem, where they could offer their sacrifices in the temple – the holy house of God.
And during the festival of Passover, the holiest time of the year, Jerusalem just SWELLED with people. They came from all over the region. And when they arrived at Jerusalem, they needed to do two things. First, they had to exchange their local currency into that which was accepted in Jerusalem, just as we might have to do when visiting a foreign country. And And since these persons traveled for miles, they needed to purchase the animal they wished to sacrifice to God, since bringing it with them would have been a burden.
However, as a result of the influx of all these people coming to Jerusalem at this holiest time of the year, the space needed to store the animals, and to provide room for those who exchanged the different currency, needed to expand. And since the temple was the center of activity, that is where most of the merchants wanted to set up shop.
Thus, I believe that the assessment of one of the commentaries that I read, is probably correct. It stated that, due to the limited amount of space surrounding the temple, and the increased demand during this holy time of the year, that some of the merchants were permitted to enter the outer courts of the temple to provide for the need of the people to make their sacrifices.
According to our Gospel lesson, it was during the Passover that Jesus went to Jerusalem, and when he entered the temple, he found that the merchants and moneychangers had not just set up shop outside the temple walls, but had entered the outer court of the temple. It would be like someone setting up shop in our fellowship hall and narthex to sell tokens to enable to participate in our worship service.
Obviously, Jesus didn’t find that very appropriate. And so we are told that Jesus, who is usually depicted as such a meek and well-mannered person, got angry. He overturns the moneychanger’s tables, spilling their coins all over the floor. Then he makes a whip, and drives the animals that were being sold for sacrifice, out of the temple, saying, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”
Well, I can imagine that the people who had made the pilgrimage to the temple that day were shocked by what Jesus had done. After all, they had come to this holy place, the temple of God, to make sacrifice, to do what all of Israel had done for centuries. They came to make themselves right with God, to atone for their sins.
But Jesus said STOP! And I don’t think that Jesus simply meant to stop the commercialism that had crept into the temple, I think he was saying STOP to this whole temple practice of offering animal sacrifice. I think he was saying STOP to trying to make ourselves right with God.
I don’t imagine that it had taken long, before the temple guards came up and surrounded Jesus and demanded, “Who gives you the authority to do this?” But Jesus doesn’t answer their question directly. Rather, he says to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three day, I will raise it up!”
Of course, the guards probably laughed their heads off. After all, it had taken forty-six years to build that temple, and I’m sure, more money than Jesus had in his pocket, or in the bank. But then John, the author of our text adds, “But he [Jesus] was speaking of the temple of his body. [And] after Jesus 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.
The truth is, Jesus took upon himself, in his own body, the whole temple practice of offering sacrifice for the atonement of sin. As the author of Hebrews puts it, “Jesus put an end to all sacrifices needed to set people right with God, for he did this once and for all time, when he offered himself on the cross in atonement for the sins of the world.” What God would not let Abraham do, he did himself. He allowed his own Son gave his life, that we might all know God’s redeeming grace for all time.
As a result, the day of making sacrifices, the day of trying to do something to make ourselves right with God is over. Through Christ’s death and resurrection, God has declared, “The only sacrifice needed to atone for your sins, has been made. Embrace my Son in faith, trust in my redeeming grace, and set your hearts and minds at peace. For my Son’s death on the croos is all the sacrifice that I need to redeem you, and all generations, from sin and death.
Amen.
