What is it that gets your juices flowing? For some people it’s the hockey game; for others, it’s politics, or maybe their job, or their truck, or…well, you tell me! The fact is, we all get all worked up on occasion…all agitated over something. Well, regardless of what you might think about the matter, Jesus had His boiling point too. The only difference is, He set the standard…the standard for holiness, and concern for the lack of regard by believers for the standard that was set by Heavenly Father long before for His people. So that literally, “got Him riled”, and when you consider the facts, it’s plain to see that His anger was justified.
Following the water-into-wine miracle at Cana of Gallilee, and a short visit to Capernaum, Jesus and His disciples went on to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, which had been instituted by God as a reminder of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, under Moses. This is a sacred holiday for the Jews, and at that stage in their history, all Jewish men over the age of twelve years were required to attend the temple ceremonies and the ceremonial offering of the sacrificial lamb. This was such a sacred holiday for them that it came to represent the very essence of Judaism. Yet, as is often the case with our rituals, this one, identified in Exodus 12.11 as “the Lord’s passover” had long since degenerated into the “Jew’s passover”, as stated in ch. 2.13 of our passage. With that background in mind then, let’s observe three very obvious characters in this passage from John ch. 2, the first being…
1. The money changers sitting, ch. 2.12-16
Now as you would expect, the center of Israel’s worship, in their role as the people of God, was the temple, the real house of God, and Israel gloried in it. After all, what other race on all the earth could speak of the Creator and the Keeper of the worlds, as residing right in the midst of them?! And now, without their even knowing it, here He was, present in the very bodily incarnation of His Son, Jesus! And what a sight met His eye; the house of prayer had become “a house of merchandise”; the place of worship had become “a den of thieves” (Mark 11.15-18)! And as we read back in ch. 1.5, here was “the Light” shining in the darkness, with the darkness comprehending it not!
Notice that in this passage, all the symbols and figures that make up the temple and its furnishings are completely ignored, while the miserable state of the nation was revealed for all to see and to hear. Often, throughout scripture, Israel is described in mainly figurative terms, eg. in ch. 1.11…”He came unto His own and His own received Him not”, but here the situation is stated in very literal terms in v. 16… “Make not My Father’s house, a place of trade!”
Apparently in days gone by, people had taken their worship more seriously; they had come to Jerusalem already equipped for the sacrifice. They had carefully raised their offering at home, or purchased an unblemished offering along the way, so that they needn’t be concerned with “making change in the offering plate”. But now, the merchants and the money grubbers had moved right on site, right into the courts of the temple proper; and not as a matter of convenience either, but purely for profit! It’s no wonder that, as He entered the temple gates to worship, and saw the sights and heard the sounds and smelled the smells of a marketplace, our Lord reacted in a very flesh-and-blood, just-like-a-man kind-of-a-way! Rather than calling down fire from heaven, as you might expect of the Creator, we’re told in v. 15 that He “made Himself a scourge of small cords” to drive them, and the cattle, and the sheep, all away…”Make not My Father’s house a place of business!” Jesus, the very picture of discretion when turning water into wine, used no discretion here! No time for sober second thought now, but rather, a taste of the wrath that is to come, for the unrepentant unregenerate. A sobering lesson, indeed.
Next time…“the disciples’ reaction” (Parts 2 & 3).
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