Lent 3 year B Sermon What a way to begin your mission to save the world…
upsetting those in power…disturbing the established pattern…showing no respect for procedure…
even turning over the furniture…
Jesus is behaving like a crazed…cattle drover…cracking the whip…stampeding the animals…driving them out…
Yet our storyteller confirms… it was the beginning of Jesus’ ministry…
He’s turned water into wine…the first sign… John’s gospel tells us…revealing the glory of things to come. [pause]
This young rabbi has promise…he’s beginning to attract attention…gather an entourage …
What will his next move be? Will he go up to Jerusalem…to curry favour with the rich and powerful…will this lead to a meteoric rise... a position of power and prominence…and earthly authority? [pause]
Well…not exactly…though Jesus does go up to Jerusalem…
Fresh from the wedding at Cana…the festivities continue… Jesus and his friends are going to party…with pilgrims from all over the world… as they stream into to Jerusalem…
to celebrate the Jewish Passover …and everyone is expecting a good time
Jews and foreigners alike… travel days on end… to get there… and when they finally do… they’re not disappointed. All once they round the Mount of Olives…and there she is… across the Kidron Valley,
"the perfection of beauty," "the joy of all the world."
Jerusalem.
And…for forty years King Herod… has put all his energies and all their taxes… into maximizing the impact …
of their first view of the city…
when travellers come around that bend…
King Herod wants to blow them away!
You see Herod had transformed the city like no other ruler since Solomon…Herod’s waged a deliberate campaign to raise Jerusalem’s profile…to increase the city’s importance in the eyes of the Roman Empire… and in the bargain …perpetuate the name of Herod for all eternity.
He built palaces…a theatre… an amphitheatre, viaducts… public monuments and magnificent fortifications. Herod built temples for various pagan gods... to serve the large gentile population of the city… [pause]
King Herod takes the most holy place in the Jewish world…a place to which their prophets promised God would return …a place where rituals and ceremonies foreshadow the coming of the Messiah…the anointed one…the one who would reconcile the whole world to God…
Herod takes this place and turns it into a monument to himself.
And when Jesus and the other religious pilgrims…round that corner on the Mount of Olives… Herod makes sure the breathtaking view… is dominated by one thing…
the gleaming gold and marble…of a new Temple… shining in the sun. An awesome symbol of wealth and power…lying in wait…for the eager multitudes… who flock to the city in their hundreds of thousands… for every required religious festival. [pause]
And when Jesus and his friends… finally make it through the gates ….and up the stairs into the Temple grounds…they enter a vast plaza called "the Court of the Gentiles" where everyone pays the price of admission…their Temple tax… and where everyone buys their animals for sacrifice. And every Jewish family… rich or poor…that large enough to consume a lamb… must offer one.
And everyone…Jew or Gentile… rich or poor…has to pay a half shekel into the temple treasury… as an offering to Israel’s God. And Herod accepts no foreign currency…
so you must exchange your money… for the Temple’s coins…
During the Passover…foreign exchange dealing is big business…
So it’s here… in the court of the Gentiles…that Jesus and his friends ‘find people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.’ [pause]
I guess Herod’s business strategy was… ‘If you build it… they will come’. For Herod the Temple was kind of like a national bank. A great public treasury… with vaults… containing immense stores of private wealth which was loaned out at high rates of interest. [pause]
But wasn’t the Temple was supposed to be a place of prayer … for all nations. Hadn’t the prophet Isaiah said…
And foreigners… who bind themselves to the LORD to serve him, to love the name of the LORD, and worship him, and all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it and all who hold fast to my covenant…
For my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. I will gather still others to them
besides those already gathered."
King Herod and the religious authorities… have turned the Temple into a religious tourist trap with money at its heart. And we who are listening to the story…already know that Jesus has taken up the mantle of Messiah…with its claims to the throne of David… a claim Jesus now makes crystal clear
‘Making a whip of cords, he drives all of them out…pours out the coins of the money changers…over turns their tables… and yells… ‘get this stuff out of here! Stop turning my Father's house… into some kind of bazaar!
It’s no coincidence…Jesus friends are reminded of one of King David’s psalms…
I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons;
for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you… fall on me.
The purpose… for gathering the people of God into the Holy Place… was prayer and worship…and Herod had made a mockery of it… in order to impress Rome…
And here’s where John’s gospel gets really interesting …because John has said… in turning water into wine…we see the first sign… that causes Jesus disciples… to believe in him. And now… after Jesus’ dramatic challenge…to the corrupt system in the Temple…
listen to what the authorities demand…
"What sign can you show us for doing this? We’ve heard about the water into wine thing…what miracle will you now perform…to justify this traitorous behaviour?
Ok… Jesus says… this is it…this will be the sign that justifies the wreckage I’ve caused today…
"Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."
At this the Temple authorities are incredulous…this guy is obviously quite mad. Hey fella…they respond its take forty six years to build this temple and you’re gonna raise it up in three days? Talk about being a false prophet
And not even forty years pass… before it does happen.
Instead of welcoming the gentiles to the house of prayer… instead of including the pagans and foreigners… who are honestly seeking after God …they’re kept in their place… outside…
The cleansing of the Temple was the second sign… revealing the glory of things to come…
And after this …John’s gospel tells us… Jesus will perform others signs… as the promise of the prophets comes true…
The promise to reconcile all humanity… to God…
and if the covenant… has already been violated beyond recognition…well then Jesus would bring in a new one…and a new Passover meal… where everyone will be welcome.
Will the Elders please come forward to help in serving this sacred meal.
