What do you do with the passage that Breda just read? Is it very familiar? Is it troubling to you? The gospels can be seen as a series of moments in Jesus’ life.
We’re presented here with a moment in Jesus’ life that a lot of folks have struggled with. What do you do with Jesus making a whip? What do you do with the level of anger expressed here by the Son of God? What do you do?
How many here saw the movie version of C.S Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? The book and the movie are essentially part one of a series of books by Lewis called The Chronicles of Narnia, and Narnia is another world outside of our own.
It’s a world inhabited by centaurs, dwarves, talking wolves and beavers, fawns, and all kinds of mythical creatures. The land of Narnia is covered in an endless winter as the result of the cruel White Witch. And this world is just waiting for this winter to end.
The central character of this book is a lion by the name of Aslan – and Aslan represents Christ. And in The Chronicles of Narnia Lewis is asking what it would look like if Christ had to come to such a world to bring salvation.
One of the differences between the book and the movie is the portrayal of Aslan. When the four children – Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter – end up in Narnia Mr. and Mrs. Beaver tell them about Aslan. They learn that Aslan is the true King and the son of the “Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea.”
When they learn that Aslan is a lion – the Lion – and not a man, Susan says, “Is he – quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” Mr. Beaver replies, “If there’s anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they’re either braver than most or just quite silly.”
Then the youngest of the children, little Lucy, says, “Then he isn’t safe?” To this question Mr. Beaver replies, “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he’s not safe. But he’s good.” [Thanks to Derek Melanson and his sermon “The True Temple” - http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-true-temple-derek-melanson-sermon-on-lordship-of-christ-88198.asp
In today’s passage we see a moment in Jesus’ life when this perhaps is very clear.
As we start to look at today’s passage more closely, we find that the action of the scene is taking place in the Temple. Why the temple? What is the temple?
The Temple Was a Place of Reconciliation
The first thing we need to understand is that there was a reason for the temple to exist, a reason it had been built over generations.
It was a place to worship God, yes, but most importantly it was intended as a place where reconciliation could happen. The sin in the heart of every man and woman is a barrier to communion with God.
The remedy to sin has never been, biblically, to balance the amount of sin in our lives with an equal or better amount of good deeds.
The remedy for sin is atonement, it is sacrifice. Sin has a price that must be paid. In the temple, sacrifices were made to pay for the debt of sin.
That’s why the temple was there in a nutshell. It had a clear purpose and function in people’s lives. But it had degraded into something else.
The Temple should have been a place
1. where people could come to commune with God,
2.to learn from the teachers of the Law of how God expected them to live (for example living out the Ten Commandments that Isaiah read to us in our Old Testament reading this morning) and
3. to bring their sacrifices for their sins.
What had it become. A rip off zone
1. You weren’t allowed to sacrifice unless you bought your animal or bird from the sellers in the Temple Courtyard.
2. You could not use everyday money to purchase the bird or animal, you had to buy with Temple money.
The pilgrim was being doubly ripped off -
1. once with the exchange rate and
2. secondly with the exorbitant prices required for sacrificial animals.
So the temple had a purpose that was being distorted, abused.
We might and think that Jesus was upset that the religious system was being corrupted, and that’s why He overturned the tables and drove out the money changers. But this was much more personal to Jesus. This was a family affair.
What does He say? v16 To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
Humans tend to think: “Temple” or “Church”; maybe “institution”. Jesus, who was fully human and fully God, was thinking: “My Father’s house”.
That’s because all the matters that we generally categorize under “Religion” are really to do with relationship. Now I don’t mean to dis religion.
There’s been a lot of viral buzz on youtube consisting of some talented communicators dissing religion. And there’s been reaction against that.
Those who speak out against “religion”, when you think about it, are invariably speaking against the abuses of religion, religion when it gets twisted and distorted and ends up far off the mark. That’s not a lot different than saying ‘rotten eggs are bad’. Rotten eggs ARE bad. Normal eggs are good.
Jesus wasn’t against religion. As demonstrated in our gospel reading today, Jesus was against the abuse of religion, as we should all be. What Jesus was and is for is a lot more important. Jesus was FOR His Father’s house.
He was FOR the relationship with God that communion with God was created for. That’s what the temple was for. That’s what this particular building we’re in now is for. Ultimately it’s what the mission is for…to bring as many people as we should be blessed to know into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
Now Jesus here is challenged. He is challenged to prove Himself, to prove His authority to critique the operation of the temple.
It’s interesting to know that later on, when Jesus DOES prove His authority in many ways, including by raising Lazarus from the dead, the response of people here asking for proof is to look proof in the eyes and decide that the proof must die.
Sometimes people say to me that believing in something you can’t see is nuts.
That’s actually what I was raised to believe. I say there’s all kinds of things we can’t see that we believe in. Oxygen. Gravity. Love. Peace. Hope.
We believe not because of what we see. We believe because of the evidence that something exists. C.S. Lewis suggested that our longing for things outside our experience or scope, beyond the capacity of humanity, was evidence of God.
For Christians, the greatest evidence is our own transformed lives. And creation itself is vast evidence for a Creator.
For the people who wanted Jesus to prove His authority, and then later saw Him prove His authority, their response to the proof was, again, telling. Their best thinking led them to the conviction that Jesus must die.
Kill the one who raises people from the dead, who feeds the thousands, who gives sight to the blind. We ask for proof, but when the proof challenges us or scuttles our worldview, when the prove proves that God is God and we are not, there’s something in us that needs to kill the proof. That is the human condition.
Jesus was for His Father’s house. He was for that which symbolizes our relationship with God, He is for that which enhances our communion with God. He wanted the temple to be what it is made to be – holy, set apart, something beautiful that in itself is evidence of the reality of God.
Now it’s tough for preachers to think about the Temple in Jerusalem, the Father’s House, without thinking of another passage that talks about the idea of temple:
1 Corinthians 6: 19 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; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
The temple in Jerusalem was fixed. It was a stationary, mighty impressive edifice. [Show Photo of temple in Jesus day (http://sacredstorydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/herods_temple00000018.jpg; ID different parts; end with the Holy Place].
When the Apostle Paul refers to your body being the temple of Holy Spirit, this is what he is thinking of. In fact, he’s not referring to the temple as a whole with all its various parts. He’s referring only to the sacred edifice or sanctuary itself, consisting of the Holy place and the Holy of Holies.
But here we have Holy Scripture telling us directly that our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. The sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, the Holy place, the Holy of Holies.
The gospel today makes it really plain that God wants His temple uncorrupted. Jesus made a whip and drove out the money changers. Jesus could have said: “Excuse me. A-hem. Would you mind relocating your entreprise to just outside the gates of the temple, if you don’t mind?” If He had been Canadian He might have said it that way.
What would that have accomplished? After they finished laughing, they would have just continued on desecrating the temple. Jesus makes a strong point through His actions.
That point of His zeal in this passage is that holiness matters. Honouring God matters. Taking particular care of what God calls holy matters.
Where the rubber hits the road here is likely obvious. God wants you and me to be holy. He wants that which is unclean and corrupting to be far from us. He wants those things that twist and pervert, which enslave and leave us addicted, to be far from us.
Today’s passage is a traditional part of Lent. The cleansing of the temple by Jesus. It is a passage that can grate against the concept of gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Who came up with that phrase, anyway? You have to gloss over a lot of the gospels to imagine a mild Jesus.
The gospels show a strong Jesus, one who speaks with authority, One who knows of Whom He speaks. The gospels show a Jesus strong to save and deliver, powerful to heal and transform. If meekness, though, is best defined as great strength under control, then ‘meek’ is a fitting way to describe Jesus.
Simple question. Is your temple clean or is it compromised? Is your life transparent or is it cloaked. Behind closed doors is their shame and regret, or is that where you dance with God like there’s nobody watching, is that where your prayer closet is?
If you’re like me you long for the former while living too much in the latter. You long for freedom but make choices that instead keep you captive.
Thanks be to God there is a way out of such conflicted living. It is first and foremost through the blood of Jesus Christ. It is in coming again to the Saviour to confess, to reveal yourself for who you are…a child of God, sanctified and made holy through the precious blood of the Lamb of God. Maybe you expected me to say ‘to reveal yourself as a sinner”.
That’s not something that needs revealing. That’s not the surprise. We all know, or I sincerely hope we all know, that we are sinners. No news there.
What we need reminding of is who we truly are in Jesus Christ. I’m going to ask you to stand if you’re able and read with me some important things about who you are in Jesus Christ.
I am accepted...
John 1:12 I am God's child.
John 15:15 As a disciple, I am a friend of Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:1 I have been justified.
1 Corinthians 6:17 I am united with the Lord, and I am one with Him in spirit.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 I have been bought with a price and I belong to God.
1 Corinthians 12:27 I am a member of Christ's body.
Ephesians 1:3-8 I have been chosen by God and adopted as His child.
Colossians 1:13-14 I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins.
Colossians 2:9-10 I am complete in Christ.
Hebrews 4:14-16 I have direct access to the throne of grace through Jesus Christ.
I am secure...
Romans 8:1-2 I am free from condemnation.
Romans 8:28 I am assured that God works for my good in all circumstances.
Romans 8:31-39 I am free from any condemnation brought against me and
I cannot be separated from the love of God.
2 Corinthians 1:21-22 I have been established, anointed and sealed by God.
Colossians 3:1-4 I am hidden with Christ in God.
Philippians 1:6 I am confident that God will complete the good work He started in me.
Philippians 3:20 I am a citizen of heaven.
2 Timothy 1:7 I have not been given a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.
1 John 5:18 I am born of God and the evil one cannot touch me.
I am significant...
John 15:5 I am a branch of Jesus Christ, the true vine, and a channel of His life.
John 15:16 I have been chosen and appointed to bear fruit.
1 Corinthians 3:16 I am God's temple.
2 Corinthians 5:17-21 I am a minister of reconciliation for God.
Ephesians 2:6 I am seated with Jesus Christ in the heavenly realm.
Ephesians 2:10 I am God's workmanship.
Ephesians 3:12 I may approach God with freedom and confidence.
Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
This, my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, is who you are. This is the reason Christ died. To create a people who belong to God and who know that they belong to God; a people who draw their purpose and their identity from Jesus Christ.
You know, Jesus cleansed the temple with a holy zeal. Zeal for His Father’s house consumed Him. It was His zeal, His passion for His Father, and that which, on earth, represented Him – The Temple, that led Him to such a passionate display as we’ve seen in today’s gospel reading.
Jesus is zealous for that which represents His Father on this planet we call earth. Church…we are the representatives of God on planet earth. We are it. God is zealous for you. That’s why your holiness, your giving yourself to God matters so much to Jesus.
That’s why, knowing we can never be holy in and of ourselves, Jesus went to Jerusalem, allowed Himself to be falsely accused, allowed Himself to be tried and convicted on false charges.
That’s why He allowed Himself to be smitten, to be beaten and abused by those He came to save. That’s why He gave up His life on the cross, why He became our sacrifice.
So that we could, by believing in His name and being submitted to His Lordship in our lives, so that we could be God’s people, “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light”. 1 Peter 2:9
