The report of Jesus cleansing the temple is found in all four of our gospels. While John has the occasion early in Christ’s ministry, Matthew, Mark, and Luke place the incident much later.
About 10 weeks ago, we remembered and celebrated the birth of the Christ Child. We find a meek, mild infant resting in a manger, an unusual place to find a newborn baby.
Regardless of when in his mission it took place, we see a Jesus we’re not used to encountering. Here, he is not the cool, calm and collected individual we normally think of when pondering who Jesus was and what he did. Instead, we run into someone who seems to almost have “lost it.” Here, he showed emotions rarely, if ever, seen elsewhere in our gospels. He’s plain angry, to the point of being violent. This is definitely not the Jesus we normally see.
Let’s try to understand what was happening.
The Festival of Passover had a long history by the time Jesus walked on earth. By this time, Passover had become a pilgrimage festival, meaning those living outside Jerusalem had to travel to the city in order to celebrate Passover. This pilgrimage brought an influx of visitors to Jerusalem, as many as 100,000 by some estimates.
Remember, part of the celebration of Passover involved the sacrifice of an animal. Now, think about it, wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier to purchase an animal for the sacrifice once arriving in Jerusalem rather than leading or carrying it to the city? Besides the difficulty in bringing an animal, there was always the possibility something would happen to the animal during the journey, making it unsuitable for use in the ritual. The animal had to be perfect, without blemish.
Passover was a boon to the economy of Jerusalem. In addition to the sacrificial animals, wine and spices were needed for the solemn feast. For those not living in the city, a room had to be rented for the festivities.
And as long as one was in Jerusalem, one might as well take advantage of the opportunity and pay the temple tax required of all the Jews. The temple wouldn’t accept Roman currency so the money brought into the city by the country folk had to be exchanged for shekels, which were acceptable to the temple authorities.Even back then, everyone changing from one currency to another was required to pay a fee for the service.
All of this, the selling of the animals and the currency exchange, took place in the Temple precincts rather than in the Temple proper. The Court of the Gentiles was a large, enclosed area into which ordinary Jews as well as Gentiles were allowed to gather. Only the priests could go into the Temple proper.
Those who were selling the animals for the sacrifices were not doing it just as a convenience for the pilgrims, either. No, they were there to make a buck or two.
For those of you who have traveled internationally, the money-changers at the Temple remind me a lot of the kiosks found in the arrival terminals all over the world where you can exchange your money into the local currency, at an exchange rate that turns out to be almost usury. Hey, those operating the currency exchange booths need to make a living, too.
This was just too much for Jesus. The Festival of Passover and the Temple had evolved into, what on the surface, had become a financial venture, negating the original purpose of both, that of worshiping Yahweh. Things had just gone too far not to be challenged. This was not the only incident in which Christ questioned the practices of the religious community and its leaders. This time, it was more physical.
The Jewish authorities confronted Jesus. John has the Jews saying to Christ, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Mark’s report of the exchange between Jesus and the religious leaders is slightly different. According to Mark, it was on the day following the incident when Mark reported, “As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to himand said, ‘By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?’”
In other words, the temple leaders seemed to be asking, “Who do you think you are, coming in here and upsetting what we’ve been doing for years and trying to change it? Who gave you the right to act this way?”
Mark said the accusations were leveled against Jesus the following day for good reason. “Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves;and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?But you have made it a den ofrobbers.’
“And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching.And when evening came, Jesus and his discipleswent out of the city.”
On the next day, Jesus, according to Mark, returned to the temple and was questioned by the temple leaders.
Admittedly the author of the Gospel According to John can have Jesus speaking on the ambiguous side, and Christ’s reply in John is no exception. The reply about raising the temple in three days was used to confuse those questioning him. The word “temple” was used to indicate the brick and mortar building that was supposed to be used for worship. Jesus wasn’t happy that this temple had been turned into a bazaar. John explains that Jesus was using “temple” to refer to his body.
Maybe every once in a while we need to take a cue from Christ and get really, really ticked off at something that smacks of injustice, mercilessness, or haughtiness.
In his sermon last week discussing the text where Jesus told his disciples to take up their cross and follow him, Fr. Hackett said, “The point is this text is about doing something really hard to do, doing something you really, really don’t WANT to do, but doing it anyway. Because NOT doing it would betray Jesus. Because NOT doing it would betray your integrity as a person. To betray my Lord is to betray who I am.”
To paraphrase Fr. Hackett, we need to get out of our comfort zones, giving up ourselves in order to follow Christ’s lead.
I, for one, am guilty of wanting to stay in my warm, cozy little area where I’m completely safe and comfortable. I, as I’m sure many of you, especially in today’s world, feel like an ostrich and just want to stick my head in the sand in hopes that all the trouble will just go away and leave me alone. News flash – it just doesn’t work like that.
What will it take tomake you, what will it take to make me “lose our cool” as Jesus seems to have lost his in the temple?