Reading: John 2.13-25
Jesus? Turning over tables in the temple?
In “The Gospel of John: When Love Comes to Town,” Dr. Paul Louis Metzger again writes:
“The notion of Jesus overturning tables at the temple is hard to categorize, and it challenges our domesticating agenda for Jesus. We often forget that we cannot commodify Jesus, even though we unwittingly tend to trivialize and “trinket-ize” Him in our minds and practices, turning Him into our very own genie in a bottle, good luck charm or bobble-headed doll that we can purchase at the local Christian bookstore. We fall prey to this way of thinking and behaving because we become complacent in our spirituality, consuming and commodifying everything religious for our convenience. We make Jesus fit our expectations and prepackage Him so that we can consume Him whenever we like. If we had been with Jesus in the temple courts, we would never have allowed Him to act in such an uncivil, uncultured, unpredictable and inconvenient manner, messing with our messianic plans for Him – and us. But like His disciples, we really have no choice in the matter. You can’t commodify and prepackage Jesus. In fact, you can never package Him.”
At the wedding in Cana, Jesus protects the ceremonial integrity of the wedding and protects the wedding party from a humiliating scene. However, in the temple as the Jewish observance of Passover is approaching Jesus makes a very public scene by confronting the commerce surrounding temple worship. The temple leaders had created space for merchants to sell their ceremonial wares in the temple area itself, trivializing and thus desecrating the temple. Jesus refused to tolerate this. In the words of Dr. Metzer, “we find Jesus going from being the life of the party (literally) at the wedding in Cana of Galilee to being the one who crashes the party in the temple in Jerusalem – and all within the space of a few verses!”
It seems that Jesus’ passion for His Father’s honor and worship drove Him to see this commercialization of the temple as an obstacle to reverent, thoughtful, and intentional worship. By their determination to conduct their business regardless of the context in which they were operating, the merchants exhibited a blunted sense of reverence for God and a dulled sensitivity to the needs of those seeking God. It’s little wonder that this story has come to be known across the centuries as “the cleansing of the temple.”
The passage goes on to tell us that “the Jews” (which, through John’s Gospel, refers to the Jewish leaders and religious establishment of the day, and not to the entire Jewish nation) in turn confronted Jesus. They wanted to know by what authority he cleansed the temple; their first response was not to acknowledge the need for reform, but rather to demand some authenticating sign for His action. This rejection is contrasted with the believe many in Jerusalem were expressing in Jesus after seeing “the signs he was performing.” But Jesus knows how flawed the human heart can be, so He did not “entrust himself to them.” Again in Dr. Metzger’s words, “Unlike the religious leaders who question Him because of their customs and the people in the crowds who believe in Him because of His external signs, Jesus sees inside. He seeks people after God’s own heart and, as the law’s fulfillment, is concerned for the spirit of the law rather than the trappings of the law.”
May Jesus overturn the tables in our lives that keep us from living out His passionate holy love!
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