Here is my sermon from this past week. The 3rd Sunday of Lent. Honestly...I think I circled the airport a few times, but never quite landed the plane. Judge for yourself. Once again, click the title for the audio.
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Late
in the book of Exodus, God speaks to Moses and instructs him to build a
tabernacle: A mobile worship space. He tells Moses to have the people make it
and “I will dwell among them.” Centuries after the Israelites settled in the
Promised Land Solomon built a permanent temple to be God’s dwelling. In 1 Kings
8:13, Solomon tells God, “I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a
place for you to dwell forever.” And the temple was just that. For the
Israelites, the Temple represented God’s presence on earth. It was here that
the Israelites would come to offer prayers to God. They would bring their
offerings for the feasts such as Passover. It was the center of Jewish worship,
where the priests facilitated the people’s access to God.
About
400 years after its construction, the Babylonian army destroyed the temple in
Jerusalem and took many of the Jews into exile in Babylon. A few decades later
Persia defeated Babylon, and King Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem
and rebuild their temple. The temple was rebuilt and their worship practices
resumed.
Over
the next few centuries the temple endured a tumultuous existence. The Seleucid
Emperor Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the temple when the Israelites refused
to stop their worship practices. After the Maccabean revolt ran the Greeks out
of Judea, the temple was rededicated to God.
Eventually,
Herod the Great came to power with the help of the Roman Empire. Herod was an
Edomite, but he wanted to be seen as a Jewish king. Part of his attempts to
pacify and be accepted by the Jews was his restoration and renovation of the
Temple. He increased the size of the temple and made it even more exquisite
than it had been before. The construction went on for decades and was still
taking place as Jesus and his disciples entered the temple. John 2: 13-22
During
his renovation of the Temple, one of the most controversial things Herod did
was to move the marketplace into the Temple court. But this mix of money and
religion was nothing new. For Jewish priests, the Temple was their livelihood.
They had no land or other sources of income. They lived on the livestock and
fruits and grain offerings made at the temple. And the temple offerings that
went to maintain the Temple served as their salaries. On top of that, for
centuries, the Temple had served as a collection point for taxes to the various
empires that ruled over Judea. For the Babylonians, Persians, Seleucids,
Ptolemies, and Romans the temple was an income source. These were both factors
that lead to the corruption of the temple system. Prayer, sacrifice, and
worship became secondary to money and power. For many Jews, the marketplace in
the Temple court was a sign of that corruption. In fact, it served a practical
purpose. Many of those coming to worship at the temple came from outside of
Jerusalem. At this time about 80% of Jews lived outside of the Holy Land. They
would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, especially at Passover, to offer a
sacrifice and pay their temple tax. If you are coming from out of town, you’re
not likely to bring livestock with you. Also, the coins of that time would have
a picture of the Emperor which meant they could not use them to pay the temple
tax. So they would have to exchange their money for temple currency known as
Tyrian shekels. So these things were necessary for temple worship. In other
words, these things were essential to the institution of the Temple. By driving
out the livestock and pouring out the coins of the moneychangers, Jesus likely
ended worship for that day. In a few short minutes Jesus shuts the temple down
for the day.
Jesus
is not simply lashing out at the vendors and the moneychangers. Jesus attacked
the entire temple system: A system that was corrupted to the point that income
took precedence over worship.
After
his outburst, the Temple leadership wants to know who he is and what he’s
doing. “What sign can you show us for doing this?” In other words, What gives
you the right? Or what makes you so special that you can come in here and shut
us down at our busiest time of the year.
What
Jesus tells them and what John’s gospel tells us about what he says shows us
his motivation. “Tear this temple down and I’ll raise it up in 3 days.” “But he
was talking about the temple of his body.” Jesus is redefining what it means to
access God and what it means to worship.
John’s
gospel begins with an important proclamation about Jesus. “In the beginning was
the word, and the word was with God and with word was God.” And “The word
became flesh and lived among us.” These two statements serve as the foundation of
John’s gospel. Jesus is the incarnate Word of God. In other words, Jesus is
God’s revelation to the world. It is through Jesus that we access God. With
Jesus’ actions and words he is proclaiming to Jerusalem and to the world that
the traditional concepts of accessing God through the priests and the rituals
they performed at the Temple are no longer valid. Instead of the temple being
the center of worship, Jesus now takes that role.
God
incarnate walked the earth; there was no longer any need for the temple to
serve as God’s presence on earth. Jesus is God’s presence.
We
are continuing our Lenten journey, focused on the cross of Jesus. As we look at
that cross, we see Emmanuel, God with us.
Many
times we think of God as this distant, being. An old man with a white beard
looking down from heaven. In Jesus, God became flesh and lived among us. We
don’t serve a distant God. We serve a present God. God is with us. On earth.
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