Sunday, March 7, 2021

Third Sunday in Lent

Third Sunday in Lent (B)

March 7, 2021

Text: John 2:13-25

            It is not so much that Jesus is angry.  He may be, but that is not the emotion our Gospel ascribes to the Lord.  It is that He is zealous.  His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’” (John 2:17; ESV. Cf. Ps. 69:9).  And what is it that ignites His zeal?  It is all those things that distract from, interrupt, and hinder the whole purpose for which the Temple stands: The Holy Communion between God and His people.  Jesus fashions the whip of cords to drive out the cacophony, the chaos, the greed of filthy lucre, and above all, the misdirected faith in a sacrificial system that was never meant to be an end in itself, but was always and only meant to point to Him.  But here is the thing about this kind of cleansing.  It can never be accomplished by a simple scrubbing or dusting, or a general tidying up.  Nor does it work to pull the old trick I suspect most of us do when the guests are on their way: Stuff all the clutter into another room and close the door.  Maybe that’s just me.  But this kind of cleansing requires something much more drastic.  Burn the house down and rebuild.  Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (v. 19). 

            Jesus is speaking, of course, about the Temple that is His Body.  He is speaking about His death and resurrection.  Jesus’ Body is the true Temple.  It is the true dwelling place of God with men.  As St. John tells us, the Word, who is God (1:1), became flesh, and dwelt, made His tent, tabernacled among us (v. 14).  That is what it means that the eternal Son of the Father became a flesh and blood human being in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the great mystery of the incarnation.  The majestic building was but a shadow of the full reality as it is enfleshed in Jesus.  He is the One who, in the pristine paradise of Eden, walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8).  And He has come to restore that sin-shattered bliss.  The Temple, and the Tabernacle before it, was given as a stop-gap measure, to be the mediated presence of God with His people.  Because God is holy, and Adam’s fallen children are decidedly not, there can be no direct contact between God and sinners without killing the sinners.  So God is enthroned on the Ark within the Holy of Holies, separated from the people by a thick curtain, and by the Holy Place, and by the incense, all contained within a building only the priests ever enter, and then a courtyard, with the altar of sacrifice.  And by the blood of sacrificial animals, the priest is to make atonement before God for the sins of the people, bringing the blood into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement.  And then he is to bring God’s thrice-holy Name, His blessing, and His holiness out to the people on the basis of that blood atonement, speaking upon them the Aaronic Benediction: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Num. 6:24-26).  The blood presented before God results in the blessing and sanctification of the people.  That is, God forgives their sins.  And He dwells with them.  And the priests and the people feast on the sacrifice, all that is not burnt up on the altar or discarded as unclean outside the camp.  And that is the Fellowship.  That is the Communion.  And though it is a real Communion for God’s Old Testament people, it is nonetheless a shadow of the reality upon which it is based.  And that reality is Christ.  He is the Holy of Holies.  He is the throne of God.  And He is the Sacrifice.  His is the Blood of atonement presented before God for the forgiveness of our sins.  And He is the Lamb upon which we feast. 

            When Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” the Jews, of course, think He is talking about the building.  And that misunderstanding will persist all the way up to the false charges that lead to our Lord’s death.  But it is this misunderstanding that exposes, on a grand scale, that by the time of Jesus, the Jews had entirely missed the point.  And that is why Jesus drives out animals and overturns bankers’ tables.  They had become entrenched in this idea that the sacrifices were effective ex opera operato, of the work being worked, the mere outward performance of the work, even apart from faith.  That is, that the animal sacrifices were an end in themselves, and that the act of sacrificing earned atonement for the people before God.  They go it all wrong.  The sacrifices the people made were pictures of the once-for-all Sacrifice God would make in giving His Son into death to atone for the sins of all people.  And these animal sacrifices were the sacramental way that God bestowed upon His Old Testament people all the saving benefits of the Sacrifice of Jesus yet to come. 

            The problem was not that there were animals for sale.  After all, if you were travelling a long way to Jerusalem to make the sacrifice, the last thing you wanted to do is bring your goat or your sheep from home, or have to keep track of a couple of turtledoves or pigeons.  So you brought the equivalent in money and made your purchase on site.  The money-changers, too… the problem isn’t that there is such a thing.  The worshipers came from all over the place, and they needed to exchange their currency for that used in the Temple, and to pay the Temple tax (in other words, to pay their offering, even if it was compulsory).  And it isn’t all that different than when we travel internationally (back when that was a thing) and we have to exchange our American dollars for the local currency. 

            This is also not to say that we can’t have youth group fundraisers or ladies’ aid bake sales in the Church, as has sometimes been suggested on the basis of this text.  The problem is where all this was taking place.  The market was in the Court of the Gentiles, which was the only place non-Jews were allowed to worship and Commune with the one true God.  It was a cacophony in the middle of their sanctuary.  It would be like holding the Farmer’s Market and a livestock auction right here in the nave during the Divine Service.  Believe it or not, Jesus is against that sort of thing. 

            The correspondence with our worship life is at least three-fold.  First, we should avoid anything that causes cacophony in the congregation, particularly during the Divine Service.  That is, we should avoid chaos, and anything that distracts, interrupts, or hinders our prayers and our attention to the gifts God is giving.  This is what St. Paul means when he says no one should speak in tongues unless they have an interpreter, and not everybody should speak all at once (1 Cor. 14:26-33).  Our God, he says, is not a God of confusion, but of order (v. 33).  And so, all that we do in our corporate worship should be well-ordered, reverent, and focused on the things of God. 

            Second, we dare never make the Church a business.  We need your offerings to do the work of mission, and in the New Testament, those offerings are voluntary, not compulsory.  But the purpose of offerings is never to make money, or save the institution that is our congregation or denomination.  We are not about money, we are about the Gospel.  And we have to trust one another to be good stewards of our own money, to provide for the needs of the poor and the work of the Church, and as a congregation, to be good stewards of the offerings that are given. 

            And third, and most importantly… never, NEVER, should we regard our offerings, our worship, our Church attendance, or our service in the Church… or any other sacrifice that we may make… as effective ex opera operato, of the work being worked apart from faith in Christ, or as in any way earning God’s favor or making atonement for our sins.  Those three things: 1. Chaos, 2. Filthy Lucre, 3. Works-Righteousness, our Lord Jesus must drive out from this House of God. 

            And there are other things that need cleansing, of course.  All our sins of thought, word, and deed, our angry words, our bitter despising of one another, our dishonesty, our lust, our covetousness.  These are all part of the cacophony.  Repent of all of that.  But to clean all of that out is not simply a matter of dusting or scrubbing or sweeping under the rug.  To be cleansed, the Temple must be destroyed, and rebuilt in three days.  That is, for the true and full cleansing of this Temple… of this House of God, and of you, who are a Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19)… the Temple that is Jesus’ Body must be crucified, dead, and buried… the Sacrifice of atonement for all our sins, and the purchase price of our redemption… and after three days, rise again, perfect, clean, glorified, whole.  That as it is with the Temple that is His Body, so it may be with us and with the whole holy Christian Church in heaven and on earth.

            And that is, by the way, the great sign of our Lord’s authority to do these things.  He died, and He is risen from the dead.  He who has the authority to lay down His life and take it up again (John 10:18), has the authority to clean house.  Zeal for the Lord’s House consumed Him.  In Zeal, He did these things, to make us into His House, by His Body given for us, and risen, and living for us.  I’m all for our building project.  But the stones and mortar and majestic edifice, the animals, the money, and even the liturgy, the whole religious system, are not the point, and never were.  The point is Jesus.  These things serve their purpose only when they point to Jesus, and deliver Jesus.  Whenever they do not, they must be driven out.  Jesus is the once-for-all Sacrifice for sins.  Jesus is the source of all our holiness.  And the Body of Jesus, who is God, is the location of our Communion with God.  Direct Communion.  No more stop-gaps.  The Day is coming when the veil will be removed, and we will see that the Temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb (Rev. 21:22).  And once again, in pristine paradise, we will walk with Jesus in the cool of the day.  Until then, there is the Supper.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.


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