There truly is no rest for the weary. We spent the last several weeks looking at the first week of Jesus’ earthly ministry; a week that was filled with little to no downtime. At the end of our text last Sunday, Jesus was in Cana in Galilee at a wedding festival. Then, as v. 12 tells us, Jesus, his mother, and some others spent a few days in Capernaum, 16 miles away from Cana. After some time there, they went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival, a celebration of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. This journey would have been at least 90 miles south along the Jordan River, but it is most likely that they would have gone around Samaria, which would have added roughly 30 miles to the journey. So, Jesus and all those with him at this time have traveled approximately 120 miles in order to partake of the Passover festival, and upon arriving at the temple in Jerusalem, they find a situation and sights that were anything but pleasing. They find corruption and greed. Instead of finding an atmosphere of worship, they find an atmosphere of commerce, but it’s not as if Jesus is against commerce; just not inside of the temple.
Some of those things that Jesus saw inside of the temple when he arrived are listed in v. 14: those selling livestock and money-changers. I think that having a brief understanding of these 2 groups of people will greatly help us in our understanding of the situation. First, those selling livestock. Part of the Passover festivities was a sacrifice that was due from everyone who came to the temple. Many of those offering a sacrifice were coming from great distances away much like Jesus had done. It was much more convenient for those people to buy livestock for sacrifice once they got to Jerusalem. They didn’t have to fool with dragging the beast behind them; nor did they have to worry about their future sacrifice not surviving the trip. The second group of people, the money-changers, were at the temple because of the tax that must be paid during the Passover. The temple authorities were very particular about what type of coinage they would accept as payment for the temple tax. They wanted only the purest silver coins. The problem was that many areas did not have a large supply of pure silver coins, and so there was a need for a currency exchange. It’s like if you go to a foreign country and they only want to deal in their currency, then you have to find a booth and exchange your currency for theirs. Now, in most currency exchange booths there is either no fee or the fee is minimal. However, these money changers would sometimes charge as much as a 12% commission on the money that they were exchanging.
Now despite the selling of animals and the exchanging of money at a pretty substantial rate, there really wasn’t anything wrong with these practices. The problem comes in the first words of v. 14, “In the temple.” You see, these practices had been taking place for almost as long as the Passover had been celebrated, but they had taken place outside of the temple. They were done somewhat close to the temple, but they were never done inside of the temple or even in the courtyard inside the temple walls. It’s commonly thought that had these practices been taking place still outside of the temple, that Jesus would have done nothing and had no problems with their behavior. Think about it like this, churches are common places for weddings. It is customary for us to buy a wedding present for a couple that is getting married. What if churches started selling china, crystal, towels, or any other merchandise that is typically given to a couple at the time of their marriage. This would take something that isn’t inherently bad and cause it to corrupt the worship that exists within the church during a marriage ceremony. That’s the issue that’s at hand here in Jesus’ thinking. He isn’t concerned with these commerce practices; he’s concerned because of where they are taking place. They are causing a house of worship, his Father’s house, to become as he says in v. 16, “a house of trade.”
Jesus’ reaction to what he sees is something that has been puzzling for many Christians who misinterpret who Jesus is. When Jesus saw this corruption of the temple he became angry. We’re told that he made a whip and drove them out of the temple. Now, just to clarify something; the “them” that is referred to here is the animals and not the people present, although they too exiting upon seeing Jesus cracking his whip. He pours out all of the money that the money-changers have collected onto the floor and kicks over their tables. By all accounts, this was a scene of incredible chaos. The actions of Jesus that we’re told about here are actions that come about as a result of anger. Jesus is truly angry at what he has found taking place within the temple, and that doesn’t compute with many Christians today. We don’t like to think of Jesus as every being angry or ever showing emotion for that matter. Even if we are willing to think of Jesus as having emotions, we don’t ever want to think of anything other than positive and joyful emotions. The truth of the matter, however, is that Jesus was human. We know that he experienced hunger, sadness, anger, and happiness. We’re told that he laughed, was angry, and wept at various times during his life. To me, this isn’t a bad thing that taints my image of Christ, this adds to my praise of him. You see, Jesus was human with all the faculties and emotions that you and I possess, yet he still lived without sinning. If Jesus were some person devoid of all human emotion, then that would make his life of perfection less praiseworthy. It would have made his death ineffective since a completely obedient human life was needed to satisfy the debt owed to God. Personally, I find great comfort in having a God who not only created and sustains me, but knows what it’s like to be human with all of its infirmities and frailties.
You see, anger isn’t the issue; there’s nothing wrong with becoming angry from time-to-time. Our problem, so often, is what we become angry over. We become angry over issues like money, material possessions, or with children who quite simply don’t know any better. Y’all know my kids; they’re too much like me, especially Thomas. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve gotten angry at him only to sit a few moments after-the-fact and wonder why I reacted the way I did; that’s the bad type of anger, that’s the anger considered to be sin, and I think that we can all relate. Jesus’ anger, however, is the type that I find no problem with. Jesus becomes angry because he is too zealous for God’s house. In other words, he was too passionate and too enthusiastic over this house of worship. In fact, John inserts the words “Zeal for your house will consume me” from Psalm 69 to let us know why Jesus was so angry. In that Psalm, David is writing about the anger and hardships that he faced because of his devotion to God. He talks about the number of enemies that he has because of his zeal for God and the fact that members of his own family have become foreign to him because of his passion for the Lord. After Jesus’ disciples see his zeal for God’s house, they think about these words of David. R.C. Sproul says about the disciples at this time, “They must have said to themselves, ‘David’s greater Son has this in common with David.’ They saw in Jesus the same thing David experienced in his life – a zeal for the house of God.” Jesus’ anger, in my observation of things, is very much right where it should be upon seeing what he saw upon arriving at the temple in Jerusalem. If we are going to become angry over anything, shouldn’t it be over God not receiving His due glory?
Seeing the chaos that Jesus has just caused, the Jews present want to know what he’s doing and what he is trying to tell them. What comes next is one of the most confusing and misunderstood statements (at least at the moment of its happening) that Jesus ever made during his earthly ministry, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” What? I mean, we only need to look to the Jews response for an understanding of how odd this statement seems. “It has taken 46 years to build this temple, and you will raise it up [from destruction] in three days?” You can see why the notion that Jesus could rebuild something in 3 days when it took an entire nation 46 years to do it the first time would be laughable. Now, I can’t help but think that there was one lone idiot here, we’ll refer to him as Tommy, who wanted to challenge this. Tommy would just want to say, “Ok then, let’s tear this place down and see if this guy can build it back up. I mean, we are all waiting on this Messiah fellow to show up right?” Now, eventually cooler heads would prevail and the thought of tearing something down that originally took 46 years to build would be shown to be a bad idea. It would have been an especially bad idea given what we now know; we know that Jesus wasn’t referencing this physical temple at all. That’s not to say that Jesus couldn’t rebuild this physical temple in 3 days, but it’s just that that wasn’t what he was talking about here in this particular situation.
Starting in v. 21 we find, “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.” This is what Jesus meant when he spoke of raising the temple from destruction after 3 days. Despite the ultimate destruction of his body, Jesus rose from the dead after 3 days, restoring his body and raising it back up. As we said last week, throughout John’s gospel account we continuously see references to Jesus’ ultimate act, an act that we remember in particular on this day, Communion Sunday. After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples had to be saying to themselves, “Oh, that’s what he was talking about. I feel so dumb right now.” Well, they shouldn’t because they didn’t know. The last 3 verses tell us that Jesus didn’t really expect anyone to fully understand or know exactly what he was talking about at the time. However, we know. We know all the facts and have all the necessary information. There is no doubt for us what is meant by Jesus when he speaks of raising a temple after 3 days. There is no reason, no excuse, for us to not believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We can’t be one of those stubborn folks who say that we have to be shown something to make us believe. The Apostle Paul, when he addressed the philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens, says, “These times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead (Acts 17:30-31). There is no man who after the death (foretold last week with the narrative of the water turned to wine) and resurrection of Jesus Christ (foretold this week by the rebuilding of the temple after 3 days), who has an excuse for not believing in God the Father Almighty. Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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