When the Lamb Shows His Claws

       A student in one of New England’s elite private schools was expelled by the headmaster.  When the alumnus father of the boy heard what had happened, he took a plane to Boston, walked into the headmaster’s office and said these exact words:  “You must damn well think you’re the one who runs this place.”  The headmaster looked at him and replied, “Sir, your language is crass and your grammar is atrocious, but you have definitely grasped the idea.”

       This morning we come to the place where Jesus’ disciples learn that Jesus runs the place. 

       John 2 comes toward the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.  Jesus has been baptized and has called His first disciples.  Some of them are present when Jesus changes water into wine at the wedding at Cana – the first part of chapter two.  John tells us in verse 12 that Jesus then moved His base of operations from Nazareth to Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee.  Last Sunday we saw the beginning of Jesus’ Galilean ministry as Jesus heals, preaches and casts out demons.

       This is what the disciple’s have seen up until this point.  John the Baptist had announced Jesus to them as “the lamb of God.”  They have seen Jesus demonstrate his tender love for people -- providing wine for a wedding feast and healing their hurts.  But suddenly, here in Jerusalem, the disciples see another side of Jesus – when the Lamb of God suddenly shows the claws of the Lion of Judah.

       Listen to the word of God from John 2:13-16

John 2:13-16

      As Jesus travels south with His disciples from Galilee to Jerusalem for Passover, the roads become more and more congested.  When they enter the city and approach the cream and gold of the great temple, the congestion becomes even worse.  Sellers of Passover trinkets and souvenirs are on every side hawking their wares. It’s kind of the first century equivalent of the “Jesus Junk” that infests so many Christian bookstores – things like the “Grow Your Own Jesus Because He’s Awesome.” You put Jesus in water and He’ll grow up to 600 times His present size.  The sad thing is, I got all of this from Em’s office. 

       Jerusalem is also filled with the noise of spring cleaning.  Every Jewish household spent the day before Passover going through the house seeking anything that contained yeast – the bread at the back of the pantry, the cracker crumbs under the sofa cushions all had to go.  Cleaning out the leaven was absolutely necessary to properly celebrate Passover. 

       So when Jesus enters Jerusalem, He enters a city where every household is in the process of cleansing.  The only exception is the temple, the very house of God.  

       Huge Passover crowds flow up the steps to the great Court of the Gentiles. This was a very large walled, marbled paved area by the south side of the temple. But despite its great size, the court is crowded. It is filled with tables and pens for animals. No one in the temple seems concerned that the House of God itself needs to be cleaned.

       So Jesus becomes angry.

       He isn’t just angry at the confusion, the noise and the smells.  He is angry at the extortion and racketeering that is going on. 

      Here’s how the extortion racket worked.

      Once a year at Passover time, every Jewish male was required to play a half shekel temple tax.  The tax couldn’t be paid in Roman of Greek coins because they had idolatrous images on them -- some image of a god or goddess or a divine emperor.  The tax has to be paid in a shekel of the sanctuary. 

       Few people kept shekels of the sanctuary lying about so money changers were present so worshippers could trade their regular coins for the approved coins.  That sounds like a helpful convenience – like having an ATM out in the narthex if you forget to bring money to put in the offering.  The problem is the exchange rate.  The money changers charge as much as 50 per cent above the face value of the coins.  It can cost a working man a full day’s wage just to change money. 

       The ultimate beneficiary is the man who sells franchises to the money changers. This man is Annas, the Godfather of the High Priestly family of Israel.   We’ll meet Annas later since he is the first official to try Jesus after He is arrested.

       Annas also makes money from the sale of animals. For example, at the Passover season it was standard to sacrifice a lamb. Of course not just any lamb can be sacrificed. It has to be free from blemishes. You don’t give God leftovers.

       Rabbinical literature tells us that inspectors spent eighteen months on a farm learning to distinguish between clean and unclean animals. They even learn how to spot animals that will become unclean at some time in the future even if they are presently okay. It is an art. And you could be dead sure that any animal you bring to the Temple from your own farm would be declared unworthy by these artful inspectors. So people simply bought pre-certified sacrifices from the animal sellers in the Court of the Gentiles. Of course these animals are very expensive. The profits go to Annas the High Priest.

       The Lord comes and sees all this for what it is -- a monstrous desecration of holy ground. He decides to clean up the place.

        He does this twice -- once at the beginning and again at the end of His earthly ministry. John tells us that at the start of His ministry Jesus entered the courtyard and saw what was happening. He reached down, picked up some cords and knotted them together. Then He began to cleanse the temple. Tables crashed and money jangled across the pavement as our Lord drove the money changers, the inspectors and the sellers out of the courtyard. “Get out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!”

       The whip is a sign of both authority and force.  Jesus does not deal with entrenched evil passively.  The whole house must be cleansed.  The words in the passage are strong.  “He drove them all out and poured of the changers money and overturned the tables.

       Some times on Sunday morning I joke with the people setting up tables so people can sign up for things like Marketplace or purchase things like lilies for Easter.  I make cracks about money changing in the temple.  But what’s happening in the temple isn’t a joke.  People are being abused in the name of God.  And when evil like this gets entrenched, it’s hard to root out.     

       Annas still thinks he’s the one who runs the place.   Jesus says, “No you don’t.”  In fact, three years after the first cleansing of the temple, Jesus comes back. Nothing has changed. The money changers, the inspectors and the sacrifice sellers are still there. So again “He overturns the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.” This time there is no mention of a whip. He doesn’t need one. He has a reputation. The retailers are quick to move.

       Then note what Jesus tells them — Mark 11:17: “Is it not written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.’”  This is a direct quote from Isaiah.

       Earlier in the service, we read from Isaiah 56. What God says there to us Gentiles who seek the God of Israel is very special. “Let no foreigner who has joined Himself to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely exclude me from His people.’”

        God says we are not left out. In fact, far from being excluded, we are invited into deepest intimacy with Him. Note the progression of Isaiah 56 — to the place where God is found, (My holy mountain) to His presence, (My house of prayer) to acceptance, (their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar.)

        This potential for relationship between us and God is why the temple was to be called “a house of prayer for all nations.” God’s stated purpose for the Court of the Gentiles was for it to be a place where non-Jews like most of us could seek God and find Him. In fact, when Solomon dedicated his temple, here is part of what he prayed to God: “As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel, but has come from a distant land because of Your name — when he comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven.”

        Why? So all the people of the earth will come to “know and fear God’s name.” The temple was to be used for Gentile evangelism. This was part of the purpose of the temple from the get-go.  But how could any Gentile concentrate or pray for anything in the bazaars of Annas? Not only are the people of Israel being ripped off. The Gentiles are being pushed aside. The desecration of the Court of the Gentiles is a massive national sin against God and against the lost people of the world.

       God doesn’t like that.  In fact, Jesus says in Luke 17:2:  “It would be best for that person to be thrown into the sea with a large stone hung around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to lose his faith.”  God just doesn’t like people who keep other people from approaching Him – who impede other people coming to faith.  So when Jesus, God in the flesh, entered His house and saw what was happening, He went to work. He did it twice. Jesus knew that this attack on Annas’ pocketbook will cause Annas to seek His life. He does it anyway.

       How does this story of the cleansing of the temple shape our image of Jesus as “the human face of God.?” 

       Well one thing we learn is that God isn’t always nice.  God is quite capable of playing hardball.    

       This story is intense.  It’s so intense that it bothers some people. For instance, one man rewrote John’s account this way: “Catching up some of the reeds that served as bedding for the cattle, Jesus twisted them into the semblance of a scourge, which could hurt neither man nor beast. He did not use it.”

       Right.  The money changers ran because Jesus was waving a piece of straw. 

      Gentle Jesus meek and mild is a concept that has been so overworked that many preach and follow a Jesus who has little resemblance to the Jesus of the New Testament. Their Jesus is drained of deity -- a weak, good natured guy whose great purpose is to let us off the hook.

        Don’t get me wrong. Jesus Himself says that He is meek in Matthew 11:29 when He invites those who have burdens to come to Him. He is gentle. But we need to balance that aspect of our Lord with the other times that he ‘looked at people with anger” because of their hardness of heart. And I’m sure the Pharisees saw nothing mild about Jesus in Matthew 23 when He says to them: “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”

       George Bernard Shaw observed, “There were times when Christ did not behave as a Christian.”  We may be disturbed by that. But Jesus is as Godlike here in the temple as when He blessed the children — or when He hung on the cross. Love for people includes hating those things that seek to destroy them.

       In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first book in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver tell the children about the great lion Aslan -- the figure or image of Jesus Christ in the Chronicles.

       "Is -- is he a man?" asked Lucy.

       "Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the king of the wood and the son of the Great-Emperor-Beyond- The-Sea. Don't you know who is the king of beasts? Aslan is a lion - -the Lion, the Great Lion."

       "Ooh!" said Susan, "I'd thought he was a man. Is he -- quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

       "That you will, dearie, and no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's anyone who can appear efore Aslan without their knees knocking together, they're either braver than most or just silly."

       "Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

       "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver. "Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the king, I tell you."

       Aslan is not a tame lion.  We can never bring God down to our level. We can never make him safe. The people of Israel tried to lock him into a box. They tried to turn the Lion of Judah into their house cat. This is shown in their worship. The priests like Annas assume that all God wants from them is a few bulls and sheep – not justice and outreach in His name.  God says in Psalm 50, verse 21: "these things you have done and I kept silence. You thought that I was just like you. I'm not!" You thought I was a permissive God who would let you enjoy a permissive society. Wrong. I'm giving you one more chance. Don't make me have to come and deal with you. I want to save you. I'm the only one who can save you.”

       Do you know what God is up to in you? Do you know what God's ultimate purpose is in your life? The Bible says that God is up to nothing less than making you like His Son Jesus Christ. So He will carve and shape you and remove anything in you that doesn't look like Jesus.

       Hebrews 12 says that God disciplines us as His children. This discipline is essential to our health and growth. In fact, Hebrews says that the fact that we are disciplined shows that we really are God's children. You don't discipline the neighbor’s kids -- even though we have all been tempted. God disciplines us because we are truly a part of His family.

       God does not delight in discipline -- any more than loving earthly parents are happy about having to discipline their children. It hurts to discipline. But to fail to provide appropriate discipline is the greatest failure of love over the long haul.

       What does God's discipline look like? Apparently it looks like whatever it takes to get our attention and do the job. Sometimes, it’s a whip.  Sometimes it’s illness. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul warns that God's discipline has come upon the church because of terrible abuses of the Lord's Supper. In fact, Paul says that the illness and even the deaths of some of the Corinthians are a part of God's disciplining process. That bothers me, but that’s what it says. 

       However, as Paul so clearly points out in 1 Corinthians, the purpose of this discipline is ultimately for our good. Its purpose is to pull us up short so that we will not be condemned along with an unbelieving world. Paul writes: "but when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord in order that we may not be condemned along with the world."  

       Discipline and damnation are two different things. In fact, the purpose of discipline is to prevent damnation.

        Throughout John's gospel, we see that anyone—anyone!—can come to Christ: murderers, prostitutes, swindlers, liars, alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, cynics, snobs, religious hypocrites, and anyone else as long as he or she realizes there is something wrong with his or her life and wants God to come in and change it! Anyone who wants to be free can come to Jesus.

        But as the disciples saw Jesus cleansing the temple, a realization must have dawned on them: Suddenly they understood—perhaps for the first time—that if you come to Jesus, be assured He is not going to leave you unchanged. He is not going to settle for clutter, compromise, dishonesty, and racketeering in your soul and your lifestyle. Whatever defiles and corrupts the "temple" of your body and soul will be purged. This purging may not take place immediately. In His love, He deals with us patiently. But equally according to His love, He never lets us remain complacent with sin and inner corruption. If we mistake His patience for indulgence and acceptance of our sinful habits, then we are in for a surprise.

       These sinful habits have been a part of our lives so long that we think God will just wink at them and accept them. But God loves us too much to allow these sins to continue forever. If we do not wish to experience the chastening, loving lash of His righteous zeal, then we must clean house ourselves.

       We must not apply the whip to others, for we are not Christ, but let us apply it to our own lives.