Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my rock and redeemer. (Psalm 19)
I asked you last week, how you felt about suffering…today I ask how you feel about being cleaned out and turned upside down?!
Jesus came to turn the world upside down! He came to turn us upside down!
Have you been turned upside down by Jesus?
Just think of his teachings…the first shall be last, the last shall be first. Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are those who are persecuted…
Those who save their lives will lose it, those who lose their lives for my sake will find it. I came not to be served but to serve.
He ate with sinners, he touched lepers, he talked with women (he encouraged women – to sit at his feet and be disciples like the men!) It’s international women’s day this week…Jesus was radical in the way he treated women. He welcomed and raised the status of little children. He turned the cultural norms upside down!
Supremely he turned the world upside down through his death on the cross and his rising to life. In an act of ultimate humiliation and apparent defeat, the creator of the world, the King of Kings, brought the greatest victory the world has ever known.
In our reading from chapter 2 of John’s gospel today we see a literal example of Jesus turning things upside down!
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
This is a different picture of how we often imagine Jesus…we don’t see him meek and mild in his manner here!
Jesus was consumed with zeal for his Father’s house.
We might read this passage and be shocked by Jesus actions, but if we think about it, imagine how shocked he was when he walked into the temple courts and saw all this buying and selling going on. The scene would have been quite confronting as he expected to enter into a holy place…the place where his Father God was worshipped, the Jews believed it was where God lived!
But here were dozens of vendors with possibly hundreds of smelly animals and birds ready for sale, along with tables of money exchangers.
There would have been quite a noisy commotion going on.
To be fair this “marketplace” was there to enable all the travelling pilgrims’ access to the right coinage and the ability to buy their sacrificial animals as prescribed in the Old Testament.
John describes this incident a bit differently from the other gospels. Firstly, he places it near the beginning of Jesus ministry, (probably for theological rather than chronological ones. It is generally believed this happened in the week leading up to and as a prelude to his arrest.)
John also records a slightly different dialogue. The others have Jesus accusing the sellers of turning the temple into a den of robbers, suggesting that the problem is their unethical business practices. In John, Jesus criticizes not so much their ethical behaviour but their very presence in his Father’s house.
Jesus is disgusted by the scene as he enters the temple, and he is consumed with zeal for his Father’s honour. He wants to restore holy worship and the honour and dignity his Father deserves– so he quite violently takes authority, turns tables upside down, makes a whip and drives the animals and the vendors out. Just try and imagine the scene, the temple leaders would have looked on in horror. He was upsetting the system, no wonder the religious leaders were upset by Jesus and eventually wanted him killed!
But it seems they didn’t try and do anything to arrest him right there and then…which you would expect to happen. I was acting Dean at the Cathedral a few years ago when I had a call from someone telling me that a man was up in the sanctuary yielding a stick and making some threats and a bit of a mess. I had to call the police to escort him out.
That man did not have authority to be in the Cathedral doing what he was doing. Jesus however did have authority and it seems the Jewish leaders recognized this somehow, because they didn’t take any action on the spot, their response was to ask him a question.
What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?
John uses the term ‘signs’ instead of ‘miracles’ throughout his gospel. Signs that pointed to who Jesus was. At the beginning of chapter 2 we read of Jesus first sign (can anyone tell me what that was?) where he turned water into wine at a wedding in Cana.
I wonder what ‘sign’ these Jews were expecting. A birth certificate showing that he was the Son of God? A miraculous sign like Moses turning his staff into a snake?
Jesus answers their question with a riddle…
“Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in 3 days.”
They would have been totally perplexed and no doubt thought there was a touch of madness about him. Thinking he was talking literally they respond by informing Jesus that it had taken 46 years to build the temple and you are going to raise it in 3 days?”
How absurd for Jesus to say such a thing- but of course we know he was not speaking literally. John as narrator of the story tells us that the temple Jesus was talking about was his body. The ultimate sign that we were to believe in was his resurrection, 3 days after death.
We don’t know what happened immediately after this incident– we can only presume that after Jesus left all the animals and vendors and money exchangers returned. And Jesus was left to depart with no arrest at this time.
So, what do we learn from this passage today? Are we uncomfortable with a Jesus who violently turned the tables and made a whip to drive the animals out?
Jesus is on his Father’s mission to reconcile people to God, to call them to repentance and true faith, quite rightly challenging the economical, greedy, perhaps superficial worship of the day. It’s righteous anger and this scenario points out that the system for worship was not working.
Jesus was soon to turn the whole system on its head. The sacrificial system of killing animals to atone for sins was going to be done away with, as Jesus, God’s son was sacrificed for all, once and for all. Thank goodness for that, I am currently reading Leviticus as I journey through the bible in one year – I am so glad those animal sacrifices are finished! John introduces Jesus as the lamb of God in chapter one of his gospel. This lamb of God goes to the cross to take away the sins of the world once and for all.
When he died the curtain in the holiest of holies in the temple was torn in two…It is now through Jesus, the High Priest, that we can enter God’s presence.
Jesus was right, he did rebuild the temple, the place of true worship in 3 days as he rose from the grave having defeated sin and death. True worship of God is through Jesus – not in the temple, not in the cathedral, not in this church – but in Jesus himself. His risen body becomes the new temple, where the glory of God is present.
In Chapter 4 of John’s gospel, we find Jesus talking about true worship with a Samaritan woman at a well. In their conversation she mentions the fact that her ancestors worship God on the mountain, but the Jews say that worship must be in Jerusalem. Jesus declares to her that “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…when the true worshipper will worship the Father in spirit and in truth and they are the kind of worshipper the Father seeks.”
Jesus came to bring people back to true worship. True worship certainly didn’t seem to be happening at the Temple in Jerusalem, the place where God was meant to dwell. No doubt there were many pilgrims who were trying to do the right thing in following the laws to worship God. But aside from the marketplace atmosphere we know it was full of hypocritical religious leaders who were self-righteous, who didn’t care for the poor and who no doubt went through the motions of worship- not worshipping in Spirit and truth.
The system was corrupt, and the system didn’t work.
Sadly, Christians through the centuries have set up new systems and temples that have been corrupt and distracted people away from true worship. Just think of the Catholic Church before reformation…taking money from people to buy indulgences for salvation, telling people they had to walk on their knees up the ‘scala Sancta’ steps in Rome to remove the punishment for sins.
Misplaced worship continues in many ways today. There are practices that might be good aides for worship, but when they become the ‘thing’ we worship then it is corrupt, becoming an idol. I can list many things that can and do distract Christians today – the Church building, the contents of the building – the candles, the light, the prayer books, the organ, the piano, the guitars, the lights and music bands in a modern church, the way communion is shared, the morning tea!
Let’s think about ourselves for a minute, what do you think Jesus would tip upside or seek to drive out in the way you worship. Is there anything corrupt, is there anything hindering you worshipping the true temple, Jesus? Anything hindering you from coming into his presence in Spirit and truth.
I started by asking if Jesus had turned your life upside down. Have you let him do that? Have you let him clean your insides out? For that is what he came to do. The perfect lamb sacrificed for us that we might be forgiven and be clean so that we might come into God’s presence and receive and rejoice in new life with him.
The Greek word translated to the English word worship is “proskuneo”. It means to fall or bow down before. Worship is an attitude of Spirit. Worship is a continual attitude, not just something we do on a Sunday in Church.
Jesus said we must worship in Spirit, we are to be born again, filled with God’s spirit so that our very nature yearns for the things of God rather than things of the world. We are to have a repentant heart that is open and turned to God.
True worship does not rely on external things – it doesn’t matter if we are in a building or not, or if we stand or sit or fall down or sing loudly or quietly – it is a complete attitude of surrender of ourselves to Jesus.
Let’s sit quietly for a minute bowing before the Lord.
Let’s pray: Lord Jesus I am so thankful that you came to replace the old system of temple worship of sacrifice, worship that never completely restored people to God, worship that was often corrupt. Jesus thank you for being the one true sacrifice for us. Lord, I grieve that so often we have tried to put in our own system of rules for worship.
Jesus as you were consumed with zeal for true worship of your Father, may we likewise be concerned to worship you in spirit and truth. Lord renew a right spirit within us, turn us over and clean out anything corrupt that prevents us from worshipping you. May we sit in your presence and bow before your glory. In Jesus glorious name I pray. Amen.
All Heaven declares
The glory of the risen Lord
Who can compare
With the beauty of the Lord
Forever He will be
The lamb upon the throne
I gladly bow to Thee
And worship Him alone