John 2:13-25

Gospel according to John 2:13-25

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 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.” Then they said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But Jesus 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. When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about human nature, for he himself knew what was within the human person.

Reflections

Jesus was very familiar with the Temple in Jerusalem. His parents brought him to the Temple in Jerusalem to be circumcised when he was eight months old. They attended the religious festivities once a year since their return after the flight of Egypt, walking south from Nazareth, and back, since he was twelve years old. Here is where they found him once, in the court of the Temple, talking to the priests and the doctors of the Law, listening to them, and asking them questions, “And all who heard Him were amazed by His intelligence and His understanding and His answers.” (Luke 2:46-52).

From Nazareth to Jerusalem, the distance is about sixty-five kilometers, on a hilly terrain, which takes a few days of walking. (1) From Galilee, it would have taken 148 kilometers, or 30 hours to walk to Jerusalem. (2) In Jerusalem, in the Temple court, is where Jesus observed the poor widow putting a coin in the donation box, and where he observed the public come and go.

The Temple was different from the synagogues, located in every community, because the synagogues were used for reading the Scriptures and for prayer, reflection, and community gathering. The Temple housed the original, ancient, Holy Scriptures. The Holiest of the Holy was present there in the innermost part of the Sanctuary. Only a few selected priests were allowed to enter this area, separated by a curtain from the rest of the Temple. They were selected from amongst the most deserving priests and took turns praying and offering sacrifice. For many of them, it was only once in their lifetime that they were allowed to enter the Sanctuary, such as Zachariah, the father of John the Baptist (Luke 1:67-79).

The First Temple was built in 1000 BC by King Solomon, and destroyed in 586 BC by King Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon. The second Temple was built after the exile in Baylon ended, and when Cyrus, the King of Persia, allowed all the Jews to return home to rebuild their temple and to worship there. The walls were erected between 585 and 332 BC. In 37 BC, King Herod enlarged the Temple Mount and rebuilt the temple suitable for welcoming a large number of worshippers. This temple was destroyed 40 years after Jesus’s death and resurrection, in 70 AD, by Titus’s army. The Second temple Courtyard, also known as the Wailing Wall, still stands from this today. (3)

The temple was organized hierarchically. People from all over the land came to Jerusalem during the Fall, and two times in the Spring, for religious festivities, Passover being the most important of all these occasions. (4) It commemorated and celebrated freedom from oppression in Egypt when Moses led the Israelites through the desert and into the Promised Land. It was celebrated with special respect to being in the state of purity to offer a lamb and to eat the Passover meal. During these festivities, the city was hustling and bustling with people from everywhere. In the middle of the noise, the chants, and people praying, the Temple stood at the center, the “Holy Ground,” and the very heart of Jewish worship and identity. (4)

Both Jews and gentiles were allowed to participate in these festivities. They would camp further outside the city gates or lodge as close to the Temple Mount as possible and engage in rituals of purification to prepare for the festivities. The man of a household would either bring the offerings to the outer chambers or buy what they wished to present as an offering, such as grains, pigeons, or a lamb. They would participate in prayers and offer their offering to the priests, who would make sure that it is passed on to the chief priests, and to those who performed the ritual sacrifices. During Passover, a piece of roasted lamb was passed back to the head of the family, for the celebration of Passover. (4)

People from all over Judea and Israel went to Jerusalem on the occasion of the Passover, and the Temple was bursting with activity. In an area that was about the size of a sports stadium, money changers were set up to exchange foreign money for local currency. The smell of food mixed with that of the animals, ready to be sold to those who wanted to purchase something for an offering. The priests, the Levites, descended from the priestly line of Aaron, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees oversaw that the rituals were observed and the economical and organizational aspect of this enormous exchange between people of all backgrounds went as smoothly as possible, according to the laws prescribed, going back to the time of Moses.

Without doubt, when Jesus came with his disciples to participate in the festivities, they were familiar what was going on inside, and around the Temple. Especially because of this familiarity, Jesus, was overtaken by a zeal for the Temple and for what it was intended for: not a marketplace, but a house of prayer and worship. He felt shame and anger for the way the people have occupied themselves with buying and selling, and the priests were more content with directing a large money-making operation, then contemplating and proclaiming the word of God. Their priorities were on appearances, on the outside, and not what was on the inside.

Jesus knew this was wrong; worship, prayer, and reverence of God for the people was incompatible with the hustle and bustle, the haggling, the noise of the people and mixed with those of the animals. Something needed to be said about it, and something needed to be done about it. And if he did not open his mouth in defense of the Holy Space, then no one else would. Rabbi Hillel, a contemporary of Jesus, worded it this way: “If I do not o it, who will do it?” If I did not do it now, when shall I do it? And if I do it only for myself, who am I?” Armed with conviction in the truth and what was right, Jesus made a whip of cords and started to chase out the beast along with their sellers, and overturned the tables of the money changers, yelling, “Stop making the house of my Father a marketplace!” – a dungeon of thieves and crooks and stop demeaning the significance of the very reason of the Temple’s existence.

“It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me,” says King David in Psalm 69:9. The Psalm continues with a prayer of supplication for the Lord to be gracious and merciful and to stand for the truth and raise His hands in justice, for it is more important to praise God with prayers and songs of thanksgiving than with oxen and burnt sacrifices. A pure heart is more pleasing to Him than any burnt sacrifice. It is the love of the Lord that pleases Him the most.

The disciples recalled Psalm 69, when Jesus was questioned by the priests about his authority to give commands. “What signs can you give us?”, they wanted to know. --“By what right do you perform these actions?” Who are you to think you are allowed to do this? But Jesus did not perform a miracle there. He was referring to the greatest sign of all the signs that was to come: “Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up.” In other words, Jesus stated his authority as the Son of God who will suffer and die on the cross and be resurrected by God the Father three days later. They did not understand what they meant, because some of them, such as the Sadducees, did not believe in the afterlife, and some of them were thinking too concretely, such as the Pharisees, who remarked, “This temple has been built for forty-six years!”, which was longer than Jesus’ age. So, they made a mockery of him and dismissed him, just as it is written in Psalm 69:6: “It is for your sake that I have born reproach.”

However, many people believed in Jesus, and those who saw his signs, and those whose heart was open to the meaning of the Scriptures, understood that his authority went beyond that on this Earth. There were those who were influential among them, and they wanted to take Jesus under their wings. But he did not have a need for protectors or guardians for he was firmly rooted in the knowledge of the Truth and his protector was His Father in Heaven.

It was as if an echo from his childhood, that the same natural feeling came to him, and confirmed him, now as an adult, in his identity: “Did you not know that I have to be about the business of my father?” “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house? (Luke 2:49-52). Not even his parents understood him then, but those who trusted Him, cherished his words, and remembered them later, when every word and action made sense and derived its meaning from a greater dimension, for it was rooted in a holy and reverent obedience to God.

“If I don’t do it, who will do it?” “If I do not do it now, when shall I do it?” and “If I do it only for myself, who am I?”—words of Rabbi Hillel, a contemporary of Jesus, cited by Viktor Frankl in the “Doctor and the Soul” (2019:49) and “Psychotherapy and Existentialism” (1967:89). If I do not stand for the truth, and for justice now, when shall I do it? If I do not aim for loving my God with all my heart, when shall I do it? And if I do it only for myself, who am I? --These are some thoughts that may accompany us though Lent, and reverberate through our soul, as we withdraw a bit from the external noise, to prepare room in the secrecy of our hearts for the remembering of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus, our Redeemer.