John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the moneychangers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After 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 scene has long been a “stand-out” scene in dramatizations of the Gospels. Whether they stage it as a play or put it on the silver screen, directors typically give a lot of attention to the “cleansing of the Temple.”
Perhaps that’s because, outside of the crucifixion, it’s the one vignette in the story we might think of as an “action scene.” Most of the time Jesus is preaching, teaching, healing and feeding people – all of which are great, of course, but don’t provide quite the same drama that driving the moneychangers out of the Temple does.
Or perhaps we take note of this scene because it seems, frankly, a little out of character with the picture of Jesus many of us hold. This is clearly not “Jesus meek and mild” of the Sunday School songs we learned.
John, however, does not share this story either to grab our interest with an opening action-packed scene or to challenge our views of Jesus. Rather, he starts here because he wants to make one very clear and very important theological point: Once Jesus is on the scene, there is no more need of sacrifice.
Notice that Jesus doesn’t, as in the similar accounts by Mark, Matthew, and Luke, accuse the moneychangers of making the Temple “a den of robbers.” Rather, he says they’ve made it a market place. And he’s right. They have. And do you know why? Because they had to. That’s right: in order to sacrifice according to the law, people need to be able to buy animals for sacrificing. Moreover, they need to be able to change money because you could not buy these animals with the Roman coin – complete with an engraving of Caesar proclaiming him “son of god” – that they would use for all their other transactions.
All of which means that Jesus’ actions make it impossible to offer sacrifices according to the law. Why? John the Baptist told us earlier: Jesus is, according to John – and in a speech, by the way, only contained in the Gospel according to John – “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
When Jesus, the Word made flesh, comes, in other words, everything changes. And among the first of these changes is that there is no longer need to sacrifice, as God will interact with God’s people in a whole new way.
Prayer: Dear God, help us to see in Jesus your decision to be accessible and available to us anytime and anywhere. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Post image: “Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple,” El Greco (1600).
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