Jesus Cleanses the Temple [John 2:13-22 English Standard Version (ESV)]
13 The Passover of the Jews
was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found
those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers
sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple,
with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and
overturned their tables. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things
away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered
that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18 So the Jews said to him, “What
sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has
taken forty-six years to build this temple,[a] and
will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking
about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples
remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the
word that Jesus had spoken.
In
the Gospel of John, the “Cleansing of the Temple” in Jerusalem is the second “sign”
of his special status as God’s son (the first being Jesus’ transformation of
water into wine). The cleansing of the Temple begins the public ministry of
Jesus in a very dramatic way—by demonstrating Jesus’ “zeal” and his disgust
with the unjust and un-Godly practices of Temple worship. In the synoptic Gospels,
this incident occurs near the end of Jesus’ ministry and within a week he is arrested
and put to death. Why do you think that John places this incident at the
beginning of Jesus’ ministry? What is John saying about Jesus’ mission?
By
attacking the money changers with whips, Jesus is using force. Does his action
contradict the idea that Jesus is a pacifist? Or is Jesus’ use of force symbolic
since no one is seriously hurt and the Temple authorities don’t intervene? Is Jesus’
action similar to that of the Berrigan brothers when they used hammers to pound
on missiles, thereby damaging them.
Why
do you feel that Jesus behaved this way? What was he trying to prove or say by
his action?
Have
you ever committed an act of civil disobedience? Describe why and what happened.
Is
Jesus’ behavior a model for how we should respond today to injustice? If not,
why not?
Some Commentary
Given
the fact that the actions of Jesus prompted no intervention on the part of
either the Temple guards, nor the Roman legionaries, Pope Francis sees
the Cleansing of the Temple not as a violent act but more of a prophetic
demonstration [i.e. symbolic speech]. In addition to writing and speaking
messages from God, Israelite or Jewish nevi'im ("spokespersons",
"prophets") often acted out prophetic parables in their life.
A common interpretation is that Jesus
was reacting to the practice of the money changers in routinely cheating the
people, but Marvin L. Krier Mich observes that a good deal of money was stored
at the temple, where it could be loaned by the wealthy to the poor who were in
danger of losing their land to debt. The Temple establishment therefore
co-operated with the aristocracy in the exploitation of the poor. One of the
first acts of the Jewish Revolt of 66 CE was the burning of the debt records in
the archives, thereby cancelling the debts and liberating the poor.
Clearly there was some sort of injustice going on in the temple
that Jesus was responding to and, compared most of the other stories told about
him, he was uncharacteristically aggressive. The disciples later related Jesus'
action to "zeal", which had a number of overtones, then and now,
of violence.
On the other hand, Jesus did not ever lead an armed revolt and
seems to have done his best to avoid being caught up in such a thing. In John 6, the
people are ready to crown him as king and he withdraws from them. While he did
cause a disturbance, he really didn't cause any permanent harm. In the end, he
was put to death for actions such as this and died without protest.
So two opposing views of this account are:
1.
Jesus demonstrated civil disobedience by disrupting commerce in
the temple.
2.
Jesus demonstrated using appropriate force to correct an
injustice.
Is this a false dichotomy? How should we interpret Jesus'
actions?
Destroy this Temple and I Will Raise
it Up in Three Days?
According to this passage, Jesus foresaw
his death and resurrection and asserted that his body was a temple more lasting
than the one built by Herod to show off his power. (Those reading this would
know that the Temple of Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, thereby
ending Jewish temple worship and forcing many Jews to leave their homeland. Many Christians experienced the risen Christ
and saw his words as prophetic.)
Pasadena theologian and activist Bert
Newton has written a book called The Subversive Wisdom of John’s Gospel.
Do you feel it was subversive for Jesus to claim that his body was somehow more
important than the Temple?
Paul and early Christians imitated
Jesus and referred to their bodies as a “temples.” This belief profoundly
influenced Quakers. How do you feel about the belief that each person’s body is
a temple of the Spirit? Do you treat
your body as a temple? If so, how?
