Wow! Look at all of this! I never imagined the Temple would look like this at Passover! There are so many people! I had heard rumors about this festival. Bigger than any other, they said, but still…I never pictured this.
I’ve been looking forward to celebrating Passover here in the big city. Well, there are too many people in the city itself, so I’m staying just outside the city walls, but still, here at Jerusalem.
I heard that I could get everything I needed here, but had no idea it would all be inside the temple courts And look—it’s not just lambs, there are birds and cattle, things for all the sacrifices. I’m kind of glad I didn’t bring one of my lambs. I’m not sure any of them would pass the inspection by the priests. Easier to get it here anyway.
Wait, they want how much for a lamb?! I know it’s unblemished and the right age, but that’s not fair at all! I’ll barely be able to afford the Passover meal if they overcharge for the herbs and grain and wine and everything else! Nobody said anything about festival prices being outrageous.
I guess I need to go see the money-changers and trade in my coins for shekels so I can buy things and pay the temple tax. You’ve got to be kidding, that is not a fair exchange rate! Wait, did I just hear someone say that the high priest’s family runs this market?! Court of the Gentiles? This place is a bazaar!
This doesn’t seem right. All of this happening in God’s house. They’re taking advantage of us because we need all these things for the Passover—and they’re doing it right here in God’s house. It’s so crowded…and they’re cheating us…and I can’t hear anyone reading the Scriptures or praying All this doesn’t exactly put me in the mood to worship! Now I’m just angry!
This is what Jesus walked into as he and others were there to get things ready to celebrate Passover and he was angry too! He was angry with what they had done to his Father’s house. What he saw was wrong. What he heard was wrong. And the hearts he could look straight into were wrong. The people on the receiving end of his righteous anger were not there for the right reasons.
Let me ask you this: Why are you here this morning?
Some of you might think that’s the dumbest question I could ask you. Others of you might be reflecting a bit, considering a few things about yourself and church.
To others the answer comes quickly: “Because this is what the wife wants.” or “Because mom and dad make me.”
Perhaps something else has moved you to come here today.
Whether we feel we’re here for the right reasons or we know that we’re not we’re going to have to think about why we come to God’s house and what is supposed to happen here, because what Jesus did and said in the Temple that day are going to force us to. Today, we
Learn from Jesus How to Worship
Respond to God’s Desire for Us to Worship (v. 13)
Worship is a bigger thing than what happens in church, of course. God says that our whole lives are worship as we live for him. But he also specifically tells us to set aside a weekly time for worshiping him. #3 on God’s stone tablet top ten list is “Remember the Sabbath Day by setting it apart as holy.” There were also a number of other expectations that God had for his people regarding worship. One of those was to celebrate the Passover each year.
This is why we see Jesus faithfully following his Father’s will, going to the temple. He was going to prepare for his worship of his heavenly Father. This is what Jesus always did synagogue on Saturdays, Jerusalem for the big festivals, following his Father’s will with a perfect heart.
Sadly, I know people who stubbornly fight against the idea that a Christian needs to go to church. I don’t understand this. I get that we fight the temptation to not come to worship. We all have a sinful nature that prefers to focus on self and follow its desires rather than God’s desires, and this is true even when it comes to going to church. I get that—and we all likely need to repent of that from time to time. But it seems a little crazy to think that God doesn’t care if we go to his house regularly. To him, this is a high-priority item! It always has been.
Just think for a moment. It is one of God’s Ten Commandments the ones that still stand, that still express his expectation for us today. Think of the detailed instructions he gave his people for his tabernacle and the priests and Levites and all the sacrifices, telling them how they were to worship. Think of how going to worship was something Jesus always did. Think of the New Testament churches that we hear about in Acts and Paul’s letters—places where God’s people met together each Sunday. Think of the letter to the Hebrews where it tells us to not neglect meeting together as some have the habit of doing (10:25).
The person who doesn’t have the desire to go to church and thinks they are a fine Christian without regularly going is fooling themselves. To put it simply, they are doing what they want and not what God wants. If this has been your philosophy, today is the day to change that way of thinking, to repent. God has always wanted his people to gather for worship, and he still does. A Christian responds to God’s call to worship out of love for him.
Worship from the Heart (v. 14-16)
Of course, God doesn’t just want us to be physically present in his house, as if just being here is meeting some sort of requirement that makes him happy. He’s looking for us to have a proper attitude in our hearts toward him.
Look into the temple courtyard, and you’ll find the opposite of what God is looking for. The people Jesus was upset with at the temple were there in God’s house, but their hearts weren’t on the Lord even while they were providing necessary things for people to use for worship. Those vendors and money-changers were treating God’s house like it was just a marketplace. For them, this was the time and place to make a great profit. Passover was big business that’s where their hearts were.
This Court of the Gentiles was an area of the Temple where anyone could go—men and women, Jew and Gentile. And it was the only part of the temple where Gentiles could go for worship. Those non-Jews could go there to learn the Scriptures, have religious discussions, and offer prayers to the Lord. But those sellers made that pretty hard to do. They had turned what was supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations into a den of robbers, which is exactly what Jesus said to the merchants and moneychangers on another day that he cleansed the temple in a similar way (Mark 11:17).
Hearing this causes us to consider our motives for being here in God’s house. I suppose we can go wrong if we see coming to church as an opportunity to improve our business by making contacts and networking or if we use fellow church members as “buyers” for some side hustle we’ve got going. But the common ground for sin that we have with those selling in the temple courtyard really has to do with the activity of our hearts when we are in God’s house. Their hearts were far from the Lord. Worshiping God was not the thing on their minds
We’re guilty of this too. We can sit here in church and our minds can be on lots of other things, things that interest us more than God interests us. We’re here, but our hearts and minds are elsewhere. We’re more interested in making faces at the cute little kid two rows in front of us…or timing the sermon…or irritated because the baptism and then communion mean the service is going to be longer than an hour. Or we’d rather think about what’s happening after church instead of what’s going on in church. Whenever we’re less interested in what goes on when we are here to meet God in his house and more interested in our time and interests, our sin is similar to those in the Court of the Gentiles. Overturned tables might remind us to turn our hearts back to Jesus in repentance.
Focus on Jesus (v. 17-22)
You stand there in the courtyard, and you see sheep sent scurrying and tables tossed and coins clinking and falling to the ground, and what’s your reaction? Shock? Questions about whether what Jesus was doing was right? God tells us what the disciples thought when they saw it. Their first thought was something prophetic that King David wrote in a psalm: Zeal for your house will consume me (69:9).
Zeal…a strong desire…an intense feeling. Jesus was filled with this intense love for his Father’s house. It was so intense and so righteous in ways that we cannot comprehend. So, yes, it can be startling to think of Jesus doing those things, but the perfect Son of God had a perfectly righteous anger and the divine right to bring judgment on those who soiled the temple with their greed and offended God with hearts that were focused on themselves rather than the Lord.
It would have been hard not to focus on Jesus in that moment. The disciples looked and saw Jesus’ love for his Father’s house and a fulfillment of a prophecy. But others there watched and demanded to know what authority he had to do this. Interestingly, we hear no objection to what Jesus did or said. They may have realized that he was right, that the Father’s house was no place for what was going on. What they wanted to know was where he got the authority to put a stop to it.
They asked for proof that he should be allowed to do this. So, he told them what the proof would be: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” Of course, he meant something entirely different than what they understood. They were thinking about the building they were misusing, and Jesus was talking about his body, which they would later abuse. All of this went completely over their heads.
Eventually, they would destroy the temple of Jesus’ body when they crucified him. Their abuses of Passover worship at the temple were nothing compared to what they did to Jesus. But God used their destruction of Jesus’ body and then his resurrection to bring forgiveness and salvation to a world of sinners
And this is the focus when we come to worship the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is why we come to God’s house. As Paul told us in 1 Corinthians earlier, we are here for the message of the cross, to hear of Christ crucified and risen! We are here to be reassured that the one who cleansed the temple has cleansed us from sin by his blood. This is our comfort and our joy when we come here and focus on Jesus!
Here God speaks to us through the Scriptures, gives new life in baptism, gives forgiveness and strength in the Lord’s Supper. Yes, we offer prayers and praise to God, but our most pressing need and the most important thing that happens here is that he comes to us. We pray that the Holy Spirit will give us pure hearts that respond to God’s call for us to worship him and that when we are here in his house our focus is squarely fixed on Jesus our Savior. Amen.
Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.