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Spring Cleaning with Jesus



John 2:13-22 in the Common English Bible (CEB) reads:

It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. He said to the dove sellers, "Get these things out of here! Don't make my Father's house a place of business." His disciples remembered that it is written, Passion for your house consumes me.

Then the Jewish leaders asked him, "By what authority are you doing these things? What miraculous sign will you show us?"

 Jesus answered, "Destroy this temple and in three days I'll raise it up."

 The Jewish leaders replied, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days?" But the temple Jesus was talking about was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he had said, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

 These verses describe Jesus' version of spring cleaning: cleaning out the temple. There are several major points to this lesson, including:
  • This, in the Gospel of John, is the beginning of the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders.
  • Jesus is the purifying presence of God.
  • The renewal of the temple equals true worship.
  • Jesus is the true temple.
This scene takes place in Passover, which is the 15th of Nisan. On our calendar, Passover happens in the middle of April.

Also, the story mentions taxes. The temple tax was one half-shekel, which would be your paycheck after two days of work. You had to pay this tax in Galilean or sanctuary shekels. If you were anywhere else in Jerusalem, you could use money from Rome, Greece, Egypt, Tyre, Sidon, or Palestine. Since the temple tax had to be paid in Galilean or sanctuary shekels, there were money changers. And you guessed it, they drew a commission off the exchange rate, which was equal to another day's paycheck.

But that's not all, if you were going to present an animal for a sacrifice--to make atonement for your sins--you had to pay a fee to have the animal inspected. And since animals were sold inside the temple, your animal would probably have a defect if it wasn't bought inside the temple at an inflated price.

How inflated were the prices? William Barclay notes that doves cost fifteen times more inside the temple. This was extortion and exploitation and it was deliberate and shameless. The contrast we see is between Jesus and the religious system. There is a conflict of values. It is a broken system.

The real point of these verses is that Jesus is the temple of God.

A temple was built as a witness to God and as a way that people could draw near to God. It was meant to be a place of worship, not a place for profit.

Is Christ our sanctuary? Are we worshiping him? Or have we put our faith in a system? Is our devotion to God or to a service?

Before we build an altar, we should kneel before God and listen.

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