Jesus Judges the Temple

I've been doing a lot of devotional writing at work lately, and I figured it would be nice to post a sample here. So I did. Below. Right...there. No, that's not it. Just keep reading and you'll come to it. No, on the computer. You have to look at the computer! Just scroll down! What? I don't know. What are you--what does that even mean? Just scroll down and read! Sheesh, it doesn't have to be this complicated. It's a blog. Welcome to 2008.

John 2:12-25

After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me."
Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?"
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
The Jews replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.

Passover would have attracted Jews from all across the world who wanted to come to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship. Because of the long journey, they would not have been able to bring the appropriate sacrifices with them—hence the availability of cattle, sheep and doves, and the presence of the money changers in the Temple. These people were providing a way for Jews to make the right sacrifices to Yahweh.

But you can’t buy worship. You can’t purchase God’s favor. Jesus was upset not simply because these money changers may have been extorting their fellow Jews; no, he was upset by the whole process of buying and selling going on at the Temple. It wasn’t merely the injustice of extortion that raised Jesus’ ire, it was the commercialization of God’s House.

In fact, by clearing the Temple, Jesus is pronouncing his judgment against it. Jesus is judging the Temple and condemning its way of worship, and he is replacing it with something else—himself. The authorities asked him, “What right do you have to clear these people out? Who are you to say that all this is wrong?” Jesus responded by saying, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” The disciples only later understood that Jesus was referring here to his own body.

By clearing the Temple, Jesus is judging the Temple and its place in Jewish life, and he is setting up an alternative Temple—himself. Jesus claims to replace the Temple as the place where heaven and earth collide. Jesus is now where we go to meet God. The Temple was destroyed less than 50 years after Jesus condemned it, and it has never been rebuilt. Jesus is the new Temple. It is through Jesus, at his cross, that we go to meet with God.