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My name is John. I have a brother named James. We are the sons of Zebedee. We're fishermen by trade. One day Jesus of Nazareth called us to become His disciples. We left dad with the nets and the boat and became fishers of men. I wrote the gospel that you read from just a few minutes ago. I was an eyewitness of what took place that day in the Temple. Let me explain what happened.
We had been in Cana for a wedding. They ran out of wine and Jesus turned the water into the finest wine I've ever tasted. It was a miracle. There's no other way to explain it. It was a sign telling us we should believe in Him, put our trust and confidence in Him. And we did.
From Cana, we went to Capernaum for a few days. While we were there, Jesus taught us the Scriptures. His focus was on the Psalms, Psalm 69 in particular. David wrote this Psalm when he was in great distress. "Save me O God! For the waters have come up to my neck." Ever feel that way? Jesus explained what David was going through and experiencing. He explained it as though He were about to go through and experience something similar. He said that David's distress was because he was so passionate about His love of God, that it tore him up to see how all that God had done and given His people had been so neglected and abused. David wrote, "Zeal for my Father's house has consumed me." Jesus talked about what it means to call God, 'my Father' and told us that we should call upon God as dear children call upon their dear Father. It was a great bible study even though we weren't too sure just what to make of it all.
From Capernaum we went to Jerusalem for Passover. As soon as we arrived in Jerusalem, we followed Jesus straight to the Temple. It was pretty obvious He was anxious to go to the Temple right away. We all figured He wanted to pray.
I need to explain something about the Temple. The Temple is where God has promised that His people can locate Him. He's present with us all the time and everywhere. But He can be found where He promises to be found – in the Temple. He sits right above the Ark of the Covenant. The great curtain of the Temple separates the Holy of Holies where God is located from the altar and the sanctuary where the worship and sacrifices of the people take place.
People bring animals to the Temple to be sacrificed for their sins. The priest sacrifices the animal on the altar in the sight of God so to speak. And God, in His grace and mercy, accepts the sacrifice of the innocent animal as a substitute for the guilty sinner. Seems a pretty unfair for the innocent animal but its extremely gracious for the guilty sinner. After the sacrifice is complete, the Priest would take some of the blood of the animal sacrificed and come to the one who offered it and pour the blood onto the person saying, 'by this blood your sins are atoned for, you are forgiven all of your sins. Go and sin no more.'
As you can imagine, there are a lot of animals sacrificed at the Temple. You can certainly bring your own animal if you'd like, but for most people, that's not very practical, especially if you come from a distance. The most practical thing to do is to buy your animal for the sacrifice once you get to Jerusalem. And there are many markets to do just that.
The people who ran the Temple were called the Sadducees. The Sadducees got the idea that they could raise some money for the Temple by setting up their own market where people could buy their animals for sacrifice. And what could be more convenient than to set it up right inside the Temple itself. So stalls and pens of ox and sheep were set up right inside the Temple and it became a very profitable business.
Then, there was also the matter of the Temple Tax. The way the cost of operating the Temple was supposed to be covered was by the Temple Tax. Moses had established the law that everyone was to pay a 1/2 Shekel according to the Sanctuary shekel. The Sanctuary shekel was a special coin just for the Temple Tax. It wouldn't be right to use a Roman coin with the imprint of Caesar's head on it and the inscription "Caesar is Lord" on it for the Temple Tax. So a special coin had to be purchased which can only be purchased from the Sadducees in the Temple.
The Temple Tax would have been plenty to support the Temple. But the sale of animals had made the Sadducees and the Temple very wealthy. I don't know if you encounter this in your world but in my day, matters of money and economy became more important than matters of faith and proper worship of God.
For example, when Moses received the blueprints for the Temple from God on Mt. Sinai, there was no marketplace in the plans. So, what the Sadducees did was to renovate the area of the Temple called, 'the court of the Gentiles,' into a marketplace. If you were a gentile and wanted to worship the God of Israel at the Temple, you had to do so from the court of the Gentiles. In essence, the Sadducees had made it virtually impossible for the Gentiles to worship at the Temple because they had taken over the space with the market. Their concern for income and the financial support of the Temple was greater than their concern for the gentiles.
As soon as we arrived at the Temple, without saying a word to us, Jesus took one of the ropes that was laying on the floor by one of the ox stalls and He unraveled the end of it. Opening the gates of the pens, He began to drive the animals out of the Temple and the sellers along with them. Then, He overturned the tables of the moneychangers because they were terribly overcharging the people for their 1/2 shekel coin. He ordered those selling the pigeons that were for the poor who couldn't afford a sheep or ox, "Take these things away." And then for everyone to hear, He shouted with more than a tinge of rage in His voice, "Do not make my Father's house a house of trade."
As we watched this drama unfold, someone whispered, "He called this His Father's house. Remember what He was teaching us in Capernaum, "Zeal for my Father's house has consumed me." And then we understood the reason for His distress.
As you can imagine, the Sadducees were furious. This was Passover, the busiest, most profitable time of the year for their market. And Jesus had just overturned everything. The little world in which these men lived had just suffered an economic collapse.
They demanded an explanation. "What sign do you show us for doing these things?" Jesus had given us a sign in Cana so that we might believe and trust Him. Now the Sadducees were demanding a sign from Jesus, but it certainly was not to believe and trust in Him.
Jesus replied, "Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up." There was a long, awkward silence. I understand that your sanctuary here was built in three days. The foundation was laid in one day and the two halves of the building were shipped up from New York, unloaded and fit together on the foundation in two days.
It was much different for the Temple. They said, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days." Actually, the Temple didn't take that long. There were lots of long interruptions in between groundbreaking and dedication. But three days was absurd. No one knew what to make of that Jesus answer. Not the Sadducees, and I must admit, none of us understood either.
And that's one of the points I want to make with you here this morning. Neither the Sadducees nor we His disciples understood what Jesus meant when He said, "destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up." When it came to understanding, we were very much the same as the Sadducees. The big difference between them and us however was that we heard what Jesus said with belief and they heard what Jesus said with unbelief. Our hearts had been opened and we looked at things according to the faith we had been given. We trusted Jesus. The Sadducees had closed their minds to Jesus and no matter what He said or no matter what sign He would have given them, they would have found a way to turn it against Him. Moses used to call that 'a hardened heart.'
We saw some of that hardhearted unbelief in action when Jesus was on trial. The Sadducees used His own words to testify against Jesus, "I heard Him say, 'destroy this temple made with hands and in three days I will build another not made with hands." (Mark 14:58).
Even while Jesus was hanging from the cross, these men cruelly mocked Him saying, "Aha. You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself, and come down from the cross!" (Mark 15:29).
Even there at the cross, none of us understood what He had meant by those words in the Temple. In fact, there was a lot that we had seen and heard while we were with Jesus for those three years that we simply didn't understand. And that wasn't because we were stupid or slow to learn. It was because none of this could make any sense until He was raised from the dead. After He was raised from the dead on the 3rd day, it all made sense and we understood.
Now, we understand that that day at the Temple, He was talking about His body, not the building. His body was destroyed on the cross and raised up again in three days. His body has replaced the Temple. God is present in Jesus. Jesus is the new Temple. God can be located by us where ever the body of Jesus is present.
Now, we understand why we no longer sacrifice animals for the forgiveness of our sins. When Jesus offered up His body on the cross, He was the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the whole world. He was the One sacrifice for all the sins of all the world. No more sacrifices for sins are needed.
I see that the body of Jesus is present on your altar here. As His blood is brought to you, be sure that you understand that this blood atones for your sins, all your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more.
But be sure that you understand this too. This is not just the crucified body of Jesus. This is also the resurrected body of Jesus. Just like seeing His resurrected body opened our eyes and we understood what He had done for us, let His resurrected body open yours eyes and "do this in remembrance" of Him.
As He comes to you in this way, remember how He came to His Temple in Jerusalem and understand that He now comes to you to drive out all of the false gods that you have penned up inside you. He comes to you to turn over all of the tables that are stacked high with the guilt you are carrying. He comes to say to your conscience, "take these sins out of here."
Don't be like the Sadducees. Don't be hardhearted. Let Him have His way with you. He is making all things new.