Sermon Transcript
John 2:13-22. The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
And he told those who sold the pigeons, Take these things away. Do not make my Father’s house a house of trade. His disciples remembered that it was written, Zeal for your house will consume me. So the Jews said to him, What sign do you show us for doing these things? Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
The Jews then said, It has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
One of C. S. Lewis’s more famous works actually wasn’t a book that he wrote. It was a sermon he preached entitled The Weight of Glory. And then actually, but ever since he spoke it, preached it, the text of that sermon has been printed and republished countless times. It has remarkably wide distribution because, presumably, Lewis identified something that is difficult to explain, but it’s almost impossible not to recognize once you start looking for it.
He speaks of a longing each of us have that and it’s deeper than simply like wanting a job or a relationship or a cure. We want something more than even those. And we might sense it in moments like when we’re watching a sunset, standing beside the ocean, looking at a mountains, listening to a piece of music, or sitting around the table with people that we love.
Maybe it was that night that we were on the beach with our friends until morning. And and we didn’t only think, this sunset is beautiful beautiful or the music is delightful or I really love my friends. There was something deeper happening that was more like, I wish I could stay here. Or maybe even, I wish this could somehow be my life.
It’s like a moment of transcendence. Probably felt like the world stopped. But then the moment passed, which we knew it would. Even even while it was happening, we knew it would only be temporary. The sunset disappears, the song ends, the meal is finished, the people around the table go home. And while it might have been one of the best moments of our lives, when it’s over, we’re left with a kind of ache that we aren’t there.
It’s not happening. So Lewis contends what we really want isn’t simply a moment or even many moments. Instead, what we want is to be united with the beauty that we experience in that moment, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. He says it’s hard to put into words, but we don’t we don’t just want to experience the beauty, love, music.
We want to be filled with it. We want it to be like become part of us and us part of it. We don’t want to just look at the mountain, we want to pass into the mountain. Or even when we’re looking at the sunset, we may ache for more of it. We have a yearning for something that’s deeper or richer than what we’re looking at or experiencing, but we seem blocked from whatever that is that’s deeper.
We can sense in those moments that there’s more there, but we can’t quite get our arms around it. Lewis describes it as, at present, we are on the outside of the world. We’re on the wrong side of the door, and we can’t get to the inside. We are separated from it. So the question is, what do we sense in those moments of kind of transcendence, but but we can’t quite seem to get our arms around?
Like, if the sunset makes us ache for more, what is the more? If the music, the love, the beauty, if they awaken something in us, call us to something deeper, what is the deeper? And why can’t we get there? Lewis’s estimation and the Bible’s answer is that we that we’re really longing for God himself.
We don’t merely want beauty, we want the beautiful one. We don’t merely want love, we want the God who is love. Or since we’re math and science minded around here, we don’t merely want order, or we don’t merely want to understand things. We we want the one who gives creation its order. We want the orderer.
We want to be connected to him, united in some way, one with him. Him and us, us and him, united with the beauty. That’s what we want and we sense sometimes, but we’re separated from him. Hence our angst when we have these, you know, deep moments that fleet away and we feel like we’re on the outside of the door. Now, the story of the Bible is we were once on the inside of the door.
Our first ancestors enjoyed what we ache for. God walked with them in the cool of the day. They were with him who is on the other side. But then, we all know what happened. Our earliest ancestors, they broke it. They closed the door. They were cast out of the garden, and we can’t get back in. We can’t get to the other side of the door.
The way is shut. We are separated, and we know it. We have this ancestral memory of being on the inside. We can feel our separation acutely sometimes, and we want back in. We’re continuing our series in the book of John. We’re looking at the many miracles of Jesus. And we’ve said each week that Jesus’ miracles weren’t just a display of his power, and they weren’t only evidence of his divine claims, although they were both of those.
They were a display of his power, they were evidence that he was divine. But they also accomplished something more. They gave us a taste of the way that the world ought to be. So when he heals the sick or raises the dead, it’s because sickness and death are not the way the world ought to be. It’s not what God intended for the world.
It’s it’s not what we had in the beginning in the garden before we were cast out, and it’s not what we will have at the end when God finally redeems everything. So miracles show us, they give us a little glimpse into the completely redeemed world into which God will eventually restore for us. Those are miracles.
That’s our series. And today we’re looking at a text when Jesus claims he can do a miracle, that he will establish our connection to the other side of that door. Now, if you’re a stickler, you may want to point out there’s no miracle in this passage. Jesus just talked to people, and he scolds some of them, but nothing miraculous happens. And that is true.
It’s a fair point that during this interchange, as Jesus talks with other people, angrily talks with other people, no miracle happens in this particular moment. Fair point. However, Jesus claims he can do something miraculous in this passage. And John tells us in this passage, because he wrote it down so much later, John didn’t write in real time. He wrote, but when he finally wrote years later and he had this perspective, he says, he puts a little footnote in our text.
Jesus did what he claimed he could do. Even though it doesn’t happen in the passage, it eventually happens and it is miraculous. So as we study this account, we will see God’s temporary solution to our separation, us being on the wrong side of the door. What was God’s temporary solution for that? Why Jesus was upset in our passage, you know, he famously turns over tables, gets out a whip. But what does his anger show us?
And then lastly, his miracle. God’s temporary solution to our separation, why Jesus was upset, what it shows us, and then the miracle. So first, God’s temporary solution to our separation was, was previously, the temple. When our ancestors were cast out of the garden, cast out from the inside of the door, and we were separated from our unification with the beautiful one because of our own actions and decisions. Even then, even when we were cast out, God didn’t let us go.
He constructed a way for us to be together in a limited capacity. And that solution was the temple. Before it was the temple, it was the tabernacle, before they could build the more durable structure of the temple, they had the tabernacle which moved around with them. But in either case, temple or tabernacle, it was the place where God would meet with his people.
It’s where God would come to us. It’s the location where, you know, he who is on the other side of the door would come to our side. That’s the point of the temple. In our passage, Jesus refers to the temple as my father’s house, verse 16, meaning this is the place where God dwells, where he is among us.
It’s his house. But he’s not only that he dwelled there, it’s where we could connect with him. It’s a place of prayer, communication with God. And it was open to everyone, Jews and Gentiles. Sometimes we have this idea the temple was only for Israelites. And it’s very true. There were many areas of the temple that were restricted to only Israelites. But there was a special area called the Gentile court, and anyone could go in there.
In a parallel passage to ours, another one of Jesus’ biographers named Mark, he kind of draws attention to this. Mark recorded this same instance of Jesus in the temple, but Mark records that Jesus said, Mark 11:17, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations, for all nations. The temple was a place where all nations could connect with God, for everyone to encounter him who was on the other side of the door.
Even though that that reunion would only be partial, it was God’s way of bridging the gap between us and him that we created. It’s how he got back to us, partially. Now, before we go any further, is that how you picture God? Do you picture him as proactively making a way for you to be together? Do you picture him as even wanting a way to be back together with you?
Or do you picture him as remote, far off, inaccessible, uninterested in you? Maybe you have a past that you still worry will prevent you from being together with God. Maybe you have a present. Maybe you think he wouldn’t want someone like you. Your sin is too great. The chasm between you and God is too far.
You’ll never be able to get back to him. Is that how you feel? Maybe someone told you something terrible like, no one could ever love you. And certainly God could never love you. Maybe you were told things like that. And it’s stuck. You can’t get it out of your heart. So you doubt if you’re lovable.
You doubt if you’re wantable. Maybe you think that one who’s on the other side of the door, he might connect with others, but he won’t connect with me. Listen, God’s heart is to get to you. He is pursuing you for you to be together. It’s really the story of the whole Bible. The Bible is the story of God’s efforts to reconcile with us.
The Bible is not a story of how we build a staircase to get to God. The one time we tried that, it really didn’t work out too well. It is the Bible is not a story of what hoops do we need to jump through in order to unite ourselves with God again. That is not the story of the Bible. It is not what we do to get up to God.
The story of the Bible is what God has done to descend to us. It’s what hoops did he jump through. That’s the story. He’s the reconciler. He’s the one who’s being proactive. And in the Old Testament, the way he got to us was the temple. Tabernacle before that. Um, God’s presence would come and dwell in the temple in a way that it wasn’t elsewhere so that we could be together.
Now, there’s lots of pomp and circumstance around the temple, rules, regulations, procedures, and those are partially to protect us, or or were to protect us. The idea was, you know, God is so great, his glory so overwhelming, if he didn’t have some diffusers between us and his glory, you know, we would be decimated.
If we can feel overwhelmed just by a sunset or a piece of music, such that we might involuntarily weep, you know, if we can lose our breath in moments like that, how much more would we be overwhelmed by encountering the beautiful one himself? We’d be dead. Joshua talked a couple weeks ago about what it was like to encounter the glory of God.
You know, Moses could only experience kind of the echo of God’s glory, not the, you know, source of it full on. So part of the design of the temple, it had these different chambers, different barriers, a veil in the middle of it, uh, to to all of that was because the glory of God was too much. He’s too great.
He’s too wonderful for us. If his otherworldliness came fully into our world and we weren’t somehow buffeted from him, we’d be ruined. So part of the design of the temple was how God could meet with people without them being ruined. Again, God wants to be with people, but he doesn’t want us destroyed in the process.
And so the temple provided a way for that to happen in a limited way. It communicates his heart to be with us. But the design of the temple, even with its with its chambers, buffers, veil, um, all of those were not the only feature of the temple that communicates his heart to be with us. What people often think of when they think of the Old Testament temple, what they think of, what you might think of, is the sacrifices.
That animals were slaughtered at the temple on a daily basis. And at Passover, uh, which is when this account takes place, there were many more animals sacrificed than during the rest of the year because people traveled to the temple from all over for Passover. The population of the city swelled, the number of sacrifices swelled to the tune of like 30,000 animals during Passover.
It would have been quite the sight. That’s a lot of animal sacrifice. And we we may wonder, what’s the point of that? We may say, how barbaric. What kind of God would demand this? Why might sacrifices be necessary, you know, in the place where God came or people came to encounter God? Why? Well, the sacrifices, just like the design of the temple, even with its chambers and veil, all of that communicated God’s desire to be with us. But perhaps not in the way that we might think.
When we think of animal sacrifices, we may assume sacrifices were offered to appease God, earn his favor, lift some curse. And in other ancient religions who practice animal sacrifices, that was the case sometimes. But that is not what the Old Testament sacrifices were meant to do. In fact, whenever people in the Old Testament started to believe that sacrifices were some kind of way to pay God off, you know, to get God on their side, whenever they thought that, God got upset with them.
Isaiah 1 is an example. God would say, you can’t buy my forgiveness. You can’t bribe me so that I’ll give you favor. That was not the point of sacrifices at all. So if they weren’t to appease God in some way, what were they for? Well, we get a clue in Hebrews 10. The author of Hebrews explains, uh, on firstly, it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Okay? Hebrews 10:4. That’s that’s what we already said. Sacrifices were not what gained people good standing with God. They could not take away sin. So what did they do? Well, here you go. The sacrifices were an annual reminder of sins. An annual reminder. They didn’t take sins away, it reminded them of their sin.
Here’s the idea. Sacrifices are a visual and visceral representation of what happened to humanity when we walked away from God. They depict our death and darkness that we chose. Going back to our earliest ancestors, you know, they originally had life and light and goodness. They were on the inside of the door.
They were living with God, but then they chose to walk away from him. And if any of us choose to walk away from life and light, what do we find? Death and darkness, which is exactly what they found. And ever since, death and darkness have marked our experience in this world. We are separated from the light and goodness that is on the other side of the door.
On our side of the door, death. And the animal sacrifices, they’re a reminder of that. They were never a way for people to buy their way back in to the inside of the door. They displayed, they reminded us of the consequences of what we chose, sin and death. So to review, the temple had at least a twofold function.
One, it was a place we could be near God, though not fully with him. And two, it was a reminder why we weren’t fully with him, visually and viscerally represented. It told us why we can’t get to the inside of the door. So you might think the temple was a place that would have felt crushing. Seems like a place that would remind you how far away from God you are.
You have no hope. We might think that. But it’s actually the opposite. Because if you put the two functions of the temple together, it communicates even more so how much God wants to be with us. If one function was, you know, God is here, life is here, light is here, that’s one function, and function two was, we have chosen death and darkness.
If you put those two together, it communicates, even though we have chosen death and darkness, God’s heart is still to be with us. It shows, even in our sin, God hasn’t stopped pursuing us. In fact, in the very place where the consequences of our sin was displayed, where there was all this death, 30,000 animals.
Like death is mega displayed. In that very place, God comes to meet with us there. He comes to the epicenter of our darkness to meet with us. That’s hopeful. Even though we couldn’t get really on the other side of the door, it was still hopeful. The temple was God’s temporary solution to our separation.
Now, in our text, when Jesus shows up at the temple, he was mad. Really mad. In the supposed place of hope, he makes a whip out of some cords and he drives people away. He overturns tables. He is not filled with hope, it doesn’t seem. He is something else. Which brings us to our second point. Why was Jesus angry and what does it show us?
He was angry because of the money changers, which is extortion. We’ll talk about that. But what it shows us is to an even greater degree how much he wants to be with us. We’ll take those one at a time. First, he’s angry about the money changers. Here’s the situation. Everyone who came to the temple during Passover was required to bring a sacrifice. The reminder of sin, so we’ve already talked about.
But for people who came from far away, it was difficult, uh, for them to transport an animal that long of a distance. So, in the Old Testament law, Deuteronomy 14, God included a provision that if people were coming from far away, instead of bringing an animal all that distance, they could bring money and buy an animal when they got there.
Seems simple enough. The provision was meant to be a grace for people, make it easier on them. Um, and if that’s all the money changers were doing, if they were just providing animals who couldn’t travel with one, if that’s the only thing that was happening, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But these money changers were extortionists.
Because, one, they would charge an excessively high rate for the animal, um, that people that people were required to have. So people didn’t think they had a choice except to buy it. Okay? But not only that, two, they would demand that the, uh, animal be purchased with a special temple currency instead of the more commonly used Roman currency.
So, for basically everyone who, uh, you know, uh, tried to buy the animal, they first had to change their money to temple money. at which point they were charged an excessively high exchange rate. And then after they paid that high exchange rate, then they had to pay an inflated price for the animal on top of that.
So they were overcharged twice. First to switch currency, second to buy the animal. But the exorbitant rates were not the only problem. Another problem with these money changers is that they set up shop in the Gentile area of the temple, which essentially pushed Gentiles out of the temple altogether.
So imagine, you know, the Gentile court, which is kind of a small space, the whole temple was kind of small really. But now in that small space, Israelites from all over the country, they’re trying to purchase 30,000 animals, as well as convert their currency. It was chaos. And it was taking place right in the middle of the only area non-Israelites were allowed to be.
So if you were a Gentile who came to the temple to connect with God, you were basically forced out by all this commotion. There was no room for you. And even if you did manage to squeeze in, it wasn’t a worshipful place. It was bedlam. So Jesus is furious because both Jews and Gentiles were kind of blocked from the whole purpose of the place.
The exorbitant fees were a barrier for Jewish people, and all the buying and selling overtaking the only area where Gentiles could be were a barrier for them. So in both cases, what Jesus is really mad about is how these money changers were making it more difficult for people to connect with God. God had made it possible for people to come to a place and be near him, albeit in a limited way. But the temple was meant to convey God’s heart to be with people, even in their sin. And now, these money
changers were interfering with it. So Jesus gets very angry and he overturns their table. He shoos them away with a whip, which shows us even more how much he wants to be with us. Go back to your assumptions about God. Is he indifferent to you? Does he only want to be with you if it’s convenient? Is he waiting to see if you’ll be able to work your way to him?
Or does he break through whatever is preventing you from being together so that you can be together? Does he get out a whip and attack anything that is blocking you from being together with him? This account, it shows Jesus’ passion and the lengths he’ll go to to be with us. I mean, this God is a God who refuses to stay distant from us.
This God will tear down any barrier, he will cross any distance, he will overturn any obstacle that keeps you from him. This God does not wait for you to climb up. He climbs down, and he comes down fighting for you. That’s the image of Jesus cleansing the temple. And think about this, Jesus is willing to fight like this even though the temple only provided a partial way for us to be together.
If he’s willing to fight for you, to fight for something for you to only kind of be together, if he’s willing to fight like that for something that only kind of gets you back together, what would he do for you to really be together? What might he do to fully tear down the shield or buffer between us so there would no longer be any separation?
What would he do for that? How hard would he fight for that? And thus we come to Jesus’ miracle. Jesus’ miracles, he says he will rebuild the temple in three days. These leaders, they demand a sign from Jesus claiming to who who is claiming to be authoritative over them, who’s like, who gives you the right to cleanse the temple?
And Jesus answers with words that kind of sound insane. He says, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. They think they’re talking, they think he’s talking about brick and mortar, the physical structure. The disciples probably did too at the time. But John, writing much later, he adds in a footnote, Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body.
They realized this temple that he would rebuild in three days was his body. You know, after he died and then was raised to life again after three days. They they finally understood, Jesus is the real temple. Jesus would fulfill everything the the old temple only partially provided. You know, in the old temple, we were reminded of our sin, but our sin was never really dealt with.
But Jesus, the real temple, instead of being reminded of our sin, we’re reminded of our forgiveness. Because in Jesus, our sin has been dealt with fully and finally forever. Jesus is the once for all lamb. Just a chapter earlier in John, John the Baptist said, here’s the one who will take away the sins of the world.
They’re gone. It’s impossible for bulls and goats to take sins away, but in Jesus, they are taken away. So instead of these, you know, many animal sacrifices which were a reminder of our continued separation, Jesus’ sacrifice shows that we are not separated whatsoever. The veil that was in the temple that shielded us from fully being in God’s presence, it was torn from top to bottom.
You know, the buffer is gone, the diffuser is gone. The way was shut, but now the way is open. God’s presence is no longer confined to like a bunker within the innermost sanctum of a building. In Jesus, the limited access of the old temple is replaced by unrestricted welcome. Similarly, there is no longer, you know, only an outer court for Gentiles.
Through Jesus, every nation, tribe, and tongue, every sinner, every person is invited all the way in. He even gives us a clue to the mechanics of how this works. How is, how is every person welcome? How is the distance between us and God gone? He says, destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days.
Meaning, his body would be destroyed, but then his body would be resurrected in three days. And when his body was destroyed, he absorbed all the separation between us and God, all the distance between us, all the sin that caused it. All the darkness and death that we chose, that we deserve, it all went on Jesus on the cross.
His body was destroyed. But then he rose. He overcame the separation, the distance, the exclusion, the sin, the death, the darkness. He overcame all of it, miraculously. That’s his miracle. He broke down the door between us and God. So now in him, there is no death. There is no separation. The way to God is open forever.
Yet even that is not the final chapter. Because, as you’ve probably experienced, in one sense, we are fully in God’s presence, but in another sense, we are not. Even though we have full access, we can still feel, we sense in some way we’re still on the other side of the door. But it will not always be so.
One day, the glory that was originally in the garden with our original ancestors, when they were on the inside of the door, one day, that glory, which then appeared in a movable tabernacle, then a temple, then came down in Jesus when his glory dwelled among us. One day that glory will fill the entire renewed earth.
The last book of the Bible, it’s Revelation, shows us a picture of what to is to come. Revelation 21:22, it describes a city with no temple at all. Why? Because the temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb. And at that time, there is no longer any need for sun or moon to shine in the city, for the glory of God, what we’ve always wanted that’s on the inside of the door, that glory of God will give it its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.
That day is coming. And on that day, there will be no wrong side of the door at all. We will truly pass into the beauty. We will bathe in it. We will become part of it. And it’ll be ours forever. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for making a way back to you. After we ran away, Lord, after we have sinned, after we chose darkness and death, you still pursue us with light and life.
Thank you. Thank you for never letting us go. We pray that we would lean into you, that we would no longer choose death and darkness on our own, but we would taste and see that you are good, and we would want even more. We pray those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
