Streamlined Sacrifice

This morning my small group read from John 2 as part of our QT.  The middle of the chapter includes the first cleansing of the temple:

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!”

His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Then the Jews demanded of him, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

~John 2:13-19

The thought occurred to me:  Why was Jesus so angry?  I mean, He says it is because they had turned His Father’s house into a market, but what about that enraged Him?

What was the temple worth?  Jesus had no misconceptions about the reality of the temple.  He did away with the idea that the presence of God was at all limited by geography when the curtain was torn when He died, and in verse 19 straight-up refers to His body as the temple.  Paul continues this line of thought when he writes that our bodies are temples to the Lord.  The lyrics of a children’s song from my youth read, “The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place – the church is the people…”

So what is my point?  Jesus was mad even though He might not consider the temple the holiest place on earth.  The Jews thought otherwise, so you might expect them to be irritated if something bad was happening in the temple courts.  One might expect it within the character of Jesus to give a stern rebuke, but to also remark that the temple wasn’t really as special as some people thought; to teach that the kingdom of God is among you, completely accessible.

But Jesus flips out like a bucking horse.  Or so it may seem.  I think He’s in total control of His faculties, but to the casual observer it looks like the Lord lost His divine marbles.  I think it was because this place was set apart for worship, and there was little worshiping.  It’s a simple answer, but true.

Worship at that time required sacrifice.  It always had and always will.  But this worship required submissiveness and animal sacrifice.  It only makes sense that the temple authority would have to regulate the animals being sold because of the cultural reality of urbanization, temple centrality, and diaspora.  When you build tables for a living and reside in the heart of Jerusalem in sheep country, it’s kind of hard to get a bull, and there is no provision for sacrificing tables; when you are a farmer who lives in Athens and makes a pilgrimage to the temple for passover, it is difficult to bring along your best bull.  And who better to get the sacrifice than the honest temple authority?

And to make everything faster, all those coins would need to be changed, as well.  It was either that or list the price in fifteen different currencies in fifteen different languages at each pavilion.

The operation sort of makes sense.  So why is Jesus so mad?  Would He have been less mad if they moved this whole operation outside the temple?  No, He probably would have torn that up, as well.  He was more enraged about the activity of the people’s hearts than where it happened.

The sacrifice was no longer sacrifice and the worship was no longer worship.  The sacrifice was some sort of reparation.  Where are you going, honey?  I’m going to stop by the market to pay for my sins.  Do you need anything while I’m out?

I do not think Jesus would have been angry had sacrifice retained its full value.  If the sacrifice was costly, the exchangers honest, and the people repentant and looking for God to save them (believe it or not, many Rabbis during the period taught just this), I believe Jesus would have been peachy with moneychangers and animals for sale inside the courtyard of the Gentiles.  But in that world, sacrifice became insignificant, cheap, casual, and streamlined.

Does that happen today?  When we throw stuff into the pot while music is played for us, do we recall how we actually earned that money?  Can we say that we put ‘x’ hours into the pot, and remember that sacrifice while we work?  Do we remember the cross?