Lent 3

The actions of Jesus in the story from John today are harsh and aggressive. Jesus goes to the temple and makes it plain that he is angry. When we remember just how important the temple was, we can understand that people would not be happy when he used language about raising it to the ground.

Why was Jesus so angry ? Why was he so motivated that he made a whip and used it to drive people and their animals out of the temple? The event can only be understood against the background of the understanding Jesus had about who he was and what he was about to do. Jesus sees Judaism with its Passovers and sacrifices to be at an end. Even the temple itself was of no more value. Instead it was his death which would end all deaths, his body which would represent the visible representation of God being with his people. There would be no more need of the religious trappings, that was the old order and now a new order had come.

Make no mistake, Jesus did not have this zeal because he was on a mission to stop corruption, he has a much bigger target than that. Jesus is not involved in a clean up exercise, he wants nothing less than an end to religion as they knew it.

When Jesus attacked the abuses which had grown up in the Temple he was prepared to face unpopularity and the dangers of confronting the powerful. He was willing to be disliked and misunderstood, in order to bring about change. Are we as Christians prepared to be as courageous?

Opening Verse of Scripture Psalm 19:14

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Collect Prayer for the Day—Before we read we pray

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Eternal God, give us insight to discern your will for us, to give up what harms us, and to seek the perfection we are promised in Jesus Christ our Lord.

First Bible Reading Exodus 20.1–17

Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

Second Reading 1 Corinthians 1.18–25

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Gospel Reading 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, both 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 market-place!’ 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.

Post Communion Prayer

Merciful Lord, grant your people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Commentary

Already in John we’ve had the world becoming flesh, living a while among us so that we could see His glory, the glory of the one and only Son; we’ve seen Jesus call His first disciples, be baptized in the River Jordan by John, and on the third day, attending a wedding in Cana in Galilee. He transforms water in the ceremonial water jars into the wine of the new Kingdom, and in so doing shows that the old world order is coming to an end as it is transformed into the new. Things can never be the same again. After this He goes down to Capernaum for a few days with His mother, brothers and disciples before coming back up to Jerusalem in time for the Passover. He goes to the Temple, the very symbol of the old world order, and literally turns things upside down. Not surprisingly the authorities ask Him what he thinks He’s doing. What authority does He think He has to do such things, ‘Show us a sigh to prove you can do such things’, they demand. Jesus then stuns the hearers by saying that they could ‘destroy this temple’ and he will rebuild it in three days. Again, John is telling us of the significance of the third day. But those who are speaking don’t understand what Jesus is saying. They are stuck in their ways. It’s as if someone has said to them that if the massive infrastructure project they have been working on for the past fifty years to rebuild and extend the Temple, with all the cost, work and sacrifice that had involved, was to be torn down, Jesus could sort things out in just three days. No wonder they were incredulous.

But that’s not what Jesus is saying, or what John wants us to understand. Jesus will transform the old, whether that be water at a wedding or worship in the Temple, but the way in which that transformation will be made complete will be on the third day, as the temple that is Christ is restored from its torn down position on the cross to the restored new life of the resurrection Kingdom. New life will be breathed into the old as it is restored to that which God intended.

With our 2000 years of Christian heritage, knowledge and learning, it’s easy for us to look back with the wisdom of hindsight and see what John was trying to tell the world about the significance if Jesus. But to those hearing the words of Jesus they would be heretical and fantastic. There was no way that what Jesus described could be achieved in human terms. And that’s the point. Jesus was not speaking in human terms but the terms of the Father who had sent Him. Yes, the sadness of what is happening in the Temple and what is has become is evident and seems to erupt with tables being turned over and animals being driven out, along with the money changers themselves. Change was coming to the old way of doing things because change was needed but it was hard for those who heard what Jesus was saying to comprehend what it meant, or the frame of reference they could use to make sense of it all.

Paul picks this up in his letter to the Corinthians. He says that the Jews were looking for signs, and the Greeks were looking for insight and wisdom. In our modern day deterministic world, we often combine these factors and demand ‘evidence’ before we believe. And because there is so much false or misleading information circulating, available and propagated through technology, we want our evidence ‘fact checked’ or ‘reality checked’. But trying to understand Jesus and our faith solely through using our intellects and cerebral functions can never work, it’s not sufficient in its own right. We’re not called to abandon our human understanding, but we are invited to go beyond it to see and perceive the world as God sees it through the eyes of Jesus. Seen that way, it’s a world that does need changing and some things turned upside down.

Over the past few years there have been, and continue to be, challenges and changes for many people, with things that we have taken for granted, or that have been part of our lives for many years, changed or impaired. It’s likely that some of these things will never be quite the same again. But as we look forward there may be new beginnings too. After the darkness of our own Good Friday’s, the light and life of Easter will surely appear.

Sam Cappleman

Meditation

Our opening sentence of scripture this week comes from Psalm 19 v 1. The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims His handiwork. It’s a verse which speaks of the heavens telling of the glory of God and the firmament declaring His handiwork. It has at its centre the glory of the Lord and the works of His hands, His creation. God’s presence in the glory of heaven made real to us and revealed to us through the works of God’s hands in creation and redeeming work through Jesus on earth. Heaven and earth meet together in this one verse. It’s as if the whole of scripture meets here. It might be stretching it a bit, but we could say God comes down to earth and reveals who He is through the redeeming works of His hands as the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and Pentecost are all rolled into one in this one verse.

In John’s gospel, special and extraordinary things take place on the third day. In this week’s reading, after the wedding in Cana and a brief visit to Capernaum, Jesus goes to Jerusalem for the Passover and, quite literally, turns things upside down and in response to a demand for a sign, declares, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. It’s the second time that John has told us that significant things happen on the third day. This time He’s giving an indication about how the new world order will be fully inaugurated and sealed forever. It’s as if the glory of God and the pale lustre of the world collide and at the crucifixion. In the passion of Christ we’ll see the creative and redemptive work of the hands of God collide with the destructive and self-centred work of the hands of humanity. In turning over the tables in the Temple, in chasing out the money changers and the animal sellers, Jesus doesn’t seem to be challenging the Temple itself, the place where in some special way it was understood God Himself was present, He’s challenging the things that went on there that don’t align with why the Temple is there in the first place. Lent is a great opportunity to spend some time in reflection, to pause with God and discern if there are tables in the temples of our own lives that, if not necessarily needing complete overturning, perhaps need a bit of shifting, cleaning, moving around, and a bit of dusting off, so that the new world order can break through again? To let the pale lustre of the world collide with the creative and redemptive work of Christ incarnate.

Sam Cappleman

Additional Material

We read that the passage from John today takes place at the ‘Passover of the Jews.’ The NIV reading ‘Jewish Passover’ doesn’t quite capture the essence of ‘them and us’ which is the true import of the phrase. The Passover Festival was derived from the episode in Egypt. It was of enormous importance for the Jews and their understanding of identity and faith. It was at this most significant festival, in the Temple - the most important and holy place, that Jesus decided to carry out this very visual and high profile attack.

All four Gospels tell the story of the cleansing of the temple (see Matt. 21:12-17; Mark 11:15-19; Luke 19:45-48), but the Synoptics place it near the end of Jesus' life, whereas John's Gospel places the cleansing at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. So why does John put it at the start?

Firstly, we need to remember that for the Gospel writers chronology was of little importance in comparison to the theological message which they were intending to convey. John wants to make his Gospel about Jesus as the fulfilment of the religion of the Jews, hence phrases such as ‘Passover of the Jews.’ The point being of course, that Christians no longer had need of such a festival. The Passover has been fulfilled in Jesus. The incident takes place at Passover, a time of death and sacrifice, because it is the death of Jesus which ends brings the need for a Passover to an end. Humankind would no longer need to purge guilt by placing onto animals the blame for their own sins.

John wants to establish right at the start of his writing what Jesus was about. He represented the end of the old of the old order and the beginning of the new. So it is that John starts his Gospel by showing that Jesus brings a new order, a transformation of religion and a time when sacrificial worship is brought to an end. The death of Jesus brings death itself to an end. Jesus is the fulfilment of the promises of God, he is about nothing less than the complete reconstitution of the worship of Israel around himself. The temple will become redundant, it will have no more purpose, it is obsolete. Rather it is the body of Jesus which is to be the true Temple.

It may well be that some of the trading which was going on in the temple precincts was inappropriate, but we miss the point of this episode if we think that this is what Jesus was so angry about. Jesus takes on the opposition fearlessly and his actions recalled to the disciples the passage from the Old Testament

‘Zeal for thy house will consume me.’ Psalm 69:9

Historians will note that the Jews said to Jesus "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years" (v. 20). Construction began under Herod the Great in 20 or 19 B.C., which means that Jesus' cleansing of the temple takes place in 27 or 28 A.D. The majority of the work on the temple has been completed by this time, but refinements will continue until 63 A.D., only seven years before the Romans will destroy the temple. Incidentally, John mentions three distinct Passovers in his Gospel, which leads us to believe that the ministry of Jesus lasted three years. ( 2:13, 6:4, 11:55).

Meditation

When Jesus cleared the Temple of the money changers and traders he challenged us to look afresh at our institutions and our personal lives. Perhaps we are being challenged to cleanse what is stale and corrupt? What abuses have crept into the way we govern our society, workplaces and lives? It is no good excusing ourselves simply because things have become accepted as the norm. We too must be prepared to challenge the status quo with the demands of the Kingdom. When Jesus attacked the abuses which had grown up in the Temple he was prepared to face unpopularity and the dangers of confronting the powerful. He was willing to be disliked and misunderstood, in order to bring about change. Are we as Christians prepared to be as courageous? Charles Royden

Hymns

For the beauty of the earth (Tune England's Lane)
For I'm building a people of power
O for a heart to praise my God (Tune Abridge)
Through all the changing scenes of life (Tune Wiltshire)
O for a thousand tongues to sing (Tune Lyngham)
The Kingdom of God

Prayers for Sunday and the week ahead

Holy Father, keep us in your truth

Holy Son, protect us under your cross

Holy Spirit, make us temples and dwelling places for your glory

Grant us your peace all the days of our lives, Lord. Amen. Maronite Church

My God I am poor and weak. Enrich me with your grace and make me strong enough to conquer temptation. May I seek the things that please you, and turn away from anything that displeases you. So that I may persevere until death in doing your will. Amen.

Lord we do not know what we should ask of you, but you already know what we need. You love us better than we know how to love ourselves. father, give to us, your children that which we do not know how to ask. We have no desire other than to do your will. Teach us to pray. Pray in us, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Francois de la Mothe Fénelon.

The gospel reading today challenges us to look afresh at our institutions and our personal lives. Perhaps we are being challenged to cleanse what is stale and corrupt? What abuses have crept into the way we govern our society, workplaces and lives? It is no good excusing ourselves simply because things have become accepted as the norm. We too must be prepared to challenge the status quo with the demands of the Kingdom. When Jesus attacked the abuses which had grown up in the Temple he was prepared to face unpopularity and the dangers of confronting the powerful. He was willing to be disliked and misunderstood, in order to bring about change. Are we as Christians prepared to be as courageous? Charles Royden

Prayers

God of mercy, be swift to help us, as our lips pour forth your praise; and fill our lives with your peace, as we open our hearts to your word and wait for your salvation. Amen

Break into my life afresh O Lord, that I might experience your love, break into my heart afresh O Lord, that others may experience your love through me. Amen

Heavenly Father, so full of forgiveness and mercy, fill your Church with such holiness that our understanding of your ways deepens daily, and all our work and worship glorifies your name. Amen

The God of peace fill you with all joy and hope in believing; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you always. Amen

A Prayer for Protection of Those in Military Service

God of Love and Compassion, we ask for your protection for those who are being sent to faraway places to prepare for our defence. we look forward to a day when no community will ever be asked to release its loved ones for purposes of war. But today, Lord, history and circumstances force us to release them into your care and into our country's service. We pray for their safe return; and not only for theirs, but for the safe return of others who are being sent from communities, so much like ours, in other parts of the world. As they face the myriad challenges and decisions that each day is destined to bring, may they be anchored by their faith, protected by your presence, and comforted by the knowledge that they are loved by you and by this community. We bless them in your name, and look forward to their safe return, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Safiyah Fosua

Prayer for Children

O God, even as we pray for the day when no one's children will be sacrificed to war, we pray for the children among us. Give them, in the midst of the confusion around us, moments to play and to rejoice in your creation. Give us calm to comfort their fears. We include in our prayers those far away who seek to comfort, feed, and shelter their children in this time of tension and war. Give all of us grace to be still, know that you are God, and join our children in moments of simple joy that remind us all that life and love are your enduring gifts; in Jesus' name. Amen.

A Prayer for us all

Christ, why do you allow wars and massacres on earth? By what mysterious judgement do you allow innocent people to be cruelly slaughtered? I cannot know. I can only find assurance in the promise that your people will find peace in heaven, where no one makes war. As gold is purified by fire, so you purify souls by these bodily tribulations, making them ready to be received above the stars in your heavenly home. (Alcuin of York c735-804)

Holy Father, keep us in your truth
Holy Son, protect us under your cross
Holy Spirit, make us temples and dwelling places for your glory
Grant us your peace all the days of our lives, Lord. Amen. Maronite Church

Lord Jesus there is within each one of us a reluctance to accept healing, a fear which stops us from changing. Sometimes Lord we are afraid to move away from what we have known even if it is hurtful to us. Give us strength to leave our brokenness behind and to be willing to accept your gift of wholeness.

My God I am poor and weak. Enrich me with your grace and make me strong enough to conquer temptation. May I seek the things that please you, and turn away from anything that displeases you. So that I may persevere until death in doing your will. Amen.

Lord we do not know what we should ask of you, but you already know what we need. You love us better than we know how to love ourselves. father, give to us, your children that which we do not know how to ask. We have no desire other than to do your will. Teach us to pray. Pray in us, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Francois de la Mothe Fénelon.