Sunday March 15 John 2:13-22

Greetings, I think spring was put on hold for a few days. As I type this a snowstorm is blowing outside my window. At least it will be warm by the weekend.

Our Sunday text is about Jesus cleansing the Temple. Harry Wendt has excellent information on his podcast pfd file about all of the background leading up to this event.
I will be able to only touch on it a little bit. I encourage you to use his website.

In the Book of John, Jesus cleanses the temple at the beginning. Jesus didn’t really “cleanse” the temple. He didn’t tidy it up a bit but rather he attacked the temple sacrificial system. John wrote his book using theological themes not narrative sequences like the synoptic gospels so he placed this story in the beginning. Jesus could not have attacked it twice, once in the beginning and once at the end, because that was part of what got him killed.

V13 The Passover was a time for great celebration of the exodus from slavery in Egypt. The city would swell in population as the people came to sacrifice and feast. The Passover meal had to be eaten within the walls of Jerusalem so every possible room for rent was full as were the hillsides with people camping on them. It was also a time when the peoples longing for a new exodus was high. It wouldn’t take much to incite a riot and get the people rebelling against Rome so during these festivals Rome would send extra soldiers to keep the peace. They were stationed at the Fortress of Antonia on the NW corner of the Temple. Pilate would also have to come to insure peace among the people.
As the Roman soldiers watch what Jesus does they don’t do anything. Why?

The teachers of the day taught that when the Messiah came he would go to the Temple and stage a take over in a military manner. He would be successful and rule militarily and politically from the Temple. He would bring peace, prosperity, and social justice to the land. Jesus does stage a take over at the Temple but it isn’t from the empire.

V14 Jesus found people selling animals for sacrifice and people exchanging money up on the Temple platform in the Court of the Gentiles. This became known as the “Bazaar of Annas”. He, as the former high Priest and head of the family of High Priests, headed the operation but all took part in it. As a worshiper it would have been disappointing to get to the Temple platform and see a stockyard/ bazaar. It would have smelled from the animal manure and been noisy from all of the haggling over exchanging money. It didn’t seem like a place of reverence and worship of God especially if it would be the only opportunity in your life to attend. The money changers accepted only coins from Tyre as they had the highest silver content. Any pilgrim who had brought other coins had to change them into this currency in order to pay the Temple tax. Of course there was a high exchange rate to benefit the money changers and the leaders of the Temple. If a sacrifice was brought the priests would inspect it and find something wrong; but they would offer to buy it back from you at a lesser value. The person would then have to purchase another animal at an exorbitant price. Again, more money for the Temple leaders. The Sadducees and religious rules had oversight of this money machine while the worshipers became very bitter.

V15 Jesus makes a whip of cords, ropes probably used to lead the sacrificial animals around. No weapons were allowed on the Temple Mount. Imagine the anger he felt as He observed the robbing of the worshipers of His Father. This was to be a holy place not a marketplace fashioned to take money from poor people who had come to worship. He then uses the whip to drive the people running the markets out of the Temple.

V16 He tells them to get out. They run. They have been hired by the leaders of the Temple so why risk injury; let the leaders deal with it. The crowds were probably cheering as someone was finally standing up for them.

V17 The disciples remember Psalm 69:9 and quote it here. This is a Messianic Psalm and the word “consume” means literally “eaten up”. This describes Jesus’ passion for His Father.

V18 The Jewish authorities ask Jesus under what authority can he do this attack. In other words “who does he think he is to be able to do this?” They want proof of his identity. They want a sign. Do they really care? No. They are just playing to the crowd. The Sadducees didn’t believe in a Messiah and they were a part of the Temple leaders.

V19 He replies with a statement that must have seemed obscure to them but it is His sign: the resurrection. He transfers the idea of a Temple” building” to his body being the Temple. He is replacing the temple. Jesus is the Temple now. He has the presence of God, the building never did. Divine fire from God had never come down to consume the sacrifice at the second Temple like it had at the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple but the prophet Haggai ( 2:6-9) had said the glory of the second Temple would be greater than the glory of the first. Where did this glory reside? In Jesus.

V20 The leaders are confused and angry. This temple took 46 years to build and it’s still not done. You are going to destroy it and rebuild it in three days.

V21 But He is speaking of His body as being the Temple. He is telling them that He is the Temple and their sign will be that He will be raised three days after they attempt to destroy Him. His death made the Temple obsolete. The curtain separating the people from God was torn in two, from top to bottom. God now lived in people’s hearts. The people didn’t need to sacrifice and have a human priest intercede with God for them but rather they could approach God on their own. Worship wasn’t dependant on a specific place anymore; they didn’t have to go to Jerusalem. They could worship anywhere. The High priest and temple leaders were no longer needed. They were out of jobs and the money train unloading at their door was stopped. This didn’t just stop after the resurrection. It took the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD and expulsion of the people from Jerusalem to finally stop all of it. But this was the start of the end. From 33AD to 70AD even the priests had to admit the sacrificial system had stopped working as all of the signs they associated with a sacrifice being accepted by God were no longer working. When the priests started trying to find the date at which the signs had stopped working, they traced it back to around 33AD. Interesting.