Divine Expectations

John 2: 13-22

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After 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.

The Gospel writer John shares with us a moment in the ministry of Jesus that allows us to see Jesus expressing his expectations and frustrations as Jesus goes up to Jerusalem and enters the Temple. There were numerous moments in the ministry of Jesus where we might have expected visible expressions of emotions to be seen and expressed through his actions. Jesus’ response to what he has witnessed in the Temple challenges the authority and power and his response captured within the text challenges us today. Obrey M. Hendricks Jr. in his 2006 publication entitled, “The Politics of Jesus” put it this way, “Even more bold were his (Jesus’) public challenges to the Priests at the Jerusalem Temple, the very seat of their power, on Passover and on other holy days when the city was full of pilgrims. The Gospel of John paints the most radical picture of Jesus in this regard.”

The witnesses and pilgrims in the Temple remembered the words written by the Psalmist, “Zeal for your house will consume me” as they watched Jesus turn over tables and drive out the merchants. While it was not unusual for items to be sold in in the Temple in Jesus’ day, the sacred space of God’s house had been allowed to become a common marketplace. The expectations for worship had become so joined to the methodical economic operations of everyday life and commerce, that they lost sight of God’s miraculous and transformational work. The worshippers were being consumed by culture and consuming that there was no expectation for their lives to become consumed by God’s miraculous work witnessed through the life of Jesus. The community of faith had become so connected to the business of worship that they lost the Spirit of worship.

Throughout this season of Lent, we are invited to recall the great work God desires to carry out in us and through us. Just as Jesus speaks about raising a new temple of his body, perhaps we should embrace the true cleansing and raising of our own temple.

prayer

In those times of our feeling overwhelmed, speak to us, Lord. Help us to remember that we do not travel distance all at one time, but step by step, day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute and that we walk by faith and not by sight.

As we face what is ahead, give to us a sense of priority and proper ordering so that we will keep the responsibilities of life and our own strength and abilities in proper focus.

—William D. Watley, “I Grow Weary”, Standing in The Need of Prayer. 2003