A Sermon for the Sixth Sunday in Lent, Palm Sunday (28/03/21): A Triumphal Approach Leads to an Anti-climax

 A Triumphal Approach Leads to an Anti-climax

Mark 11:1-11

Time and again throughout his ministry Jesus has demonstrated insight that others do not and even cannot possess. Often he knows what others are thinking without them speaking those thoughts out loud. All the way along he has recognised where his mission leads and what the conclusion of his ministry will be. Once again he demonstrates that insight. As they come over the hill, the Mount of Olives, and approach the last two villages before the city of Jerusalem itself, Jesus calls two of his closest followers from the large crowd which is following him, and says to them:

“Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find there a colt that has never been ridden, untie it and bring it.”

As predictions go perhaps this is not all that remarkable. A young donkey tied up outside a house after all is not a scene that is going to make anyone gasp with amazement. Such a sight lies very much within the bounds of the everyday and unremarkable. What is remarkable perhaps is that what Jesus needs is available precisely in the time and the place which he needs it. His followers are left to wonder: Is this some special insight which Jesus possesses? Or does this speak of some larger network of support for Jesus, of which even the disciples closest to him on the road know nothing? Either one of those circumstances is hardly less remarkable than the other. And both would speak to the degree of control which Jesus has over the course of event that are now taking place. It is he who is in charge and it is Jesus who is determining what, and how and when events are taking place.

Of course Jesus’ disciple do as they are told. And they find things exactly as Jesus has described them. As they come into the village, there, tied up in the street is a colt. It is young enough never to have be used for riding This will mark out Jesus’ use of it as his means to enter the Holy City as special, unique. The animal which he rides has been set apart, to ready for just this purpose. It is an ordinary animal though, and it has an owner, and its owner has neighbours. As the disciples untie the animal a number of those in the street challenge what they are doing:

“Why are you dong this?”

This is neither surprising nor unpredictable, villages are close knit communities where everyone knows everyone else’s business, and they certainly know whose beast of burden is whose. But forewarned is forearmed. Jesus’ control is such that he has already anticipated this situation for his disciples. They respond to this challenge in exactly way Jesus had instructed them:

“The Lord needs it, and will send it back here immediately.”

Requisition is a common experience. The powers that be, the power of this world, will always take what it needs to accomplish its own ends. The Empire does just that, often. The Romans take their taxes and when they have taken those they take whatever else they decide they need or want. A group of soldiers could just as easily have turned up that day and removed the colt. The words of Jesus possess authority. His words command even when they are spoken only by his followers. Jesus shows that his voice possesses at least as much authority in the world and its ordinary affairs as does the voice of Empire. The passers-by in the street hear that authority, and they allow the disciples to take the colt. But there is one critical difference between the call of Jesus and the demand of Empire. Jesus’ request is accompanied by the promise the restore everything to their proper condition after his mission is complete. Which will be very soon now!

Jesus has very carefully and deliberately set all of this up. He is directing this drama. He has has set up a living parable, a demonstration for everyone to see, of who he is and what his mission has been about from the start.

“Then they brought the colt to Jesus and they threw their cloaks on it and he sat on it.”

Pilgrims enter the Jerusalem on foot, rulers ride. Victorious generals though enter a captured capital on their war horse, or in their chariot of iron. Jesus does so on an untried beast of burden. He somehow manages to make the exalted claim to rule in this place, whilst at the same time remaining humble. He is both the victorious king and the simple servant of God from Galilee. The crowd very quickly catch on to what Jesus is showing them. Their mood is already excited by the proximity of the Holy City and by the nearness of that great festival of liberation, Passover. They respond to Jesus’ actions, as Jesus knew they would, by forming a celebratory procession. They create a carpet for Jesus’ colt to walk on, they lay their coats and the leafy branches they have cut from the roadside in front of him. Everyone loves a procession, and this is no exception. In their excitement the crowd begins to sing.

They mingle pilgrim psalms with those which look forward to God’s messianic ruler:

“Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Somewhere lurking at the back of their minds are half remembered ancient prophecies which tell them that this is exactly what they should expect on the day of the Lord. On that day he will place his feet on this hillside, the Mount of Olives overlooking Mount Zion, from where you can look into the heart of Jerusalem, you can see into the temple itself. They recall that when God’s chosen one comes he will come to them humble and riding on a donkey. This is exactly what Jesus has set up. He has deliberately prompted this response. Jesus has given the crowd the opportunity and reminded them of the resources which they have, that enables them to express their hope that the future will be different from the present. Jesus has allowed them to speak out their longing for a world in which there is peace and in which there is justice. And he has helped them to recognise that he is the one who will give fulfilment to those longings. All of this is just as Jesus has intended it.

But what did the crowd think would happen next? What did they think they would see when they had passed through the gates of Jerusalem and had entered the Temple itself? Did they expect to see a demonstration of God’s power? Did they expect to see Jesus standing on that mountaintop transfigured by the power of God which resided there? Did they expect to see reality of God more visible in the man Jesus? Did they expect to witness the dramatic intervention of God to bring about the fulfilment of their people’s longings? Did they expect the people of Jerusalem to welcome them and welcome Jesus, did they expect them to rise up with this crowd and acclaim Jesus the one who God has sent?

If they did they were going to be disappointed. The most striking thing about this story is its anti-climax. Calling the events of the first Palm a “triumphal entry” seems to be something of a misnomer. It is at best a “triumphal approach.” By the time they get into the city and into the temple, the excitement and the energy seems to have dissipated. The kingdom of God does not appear there and then, at least not in the way that any of them were expecting it to be. Almost immediately the crowd lose sight of Jesus, so that for once he can continue with his own activities undisturbed.

This too is exactly as Jesus has anticipated. Jesus has already lamented over Jerusalem. He knows that this is the place which rejects those who are sent to it and which kills the prophets of God. It is enough to make him weep! He also knows that the crowd is fickle. People cannot be relied upon. Just before he began this final journey towards Jerusalem he had questioned his disciples:

“Who do people say that I am?”

The disciples had answered that people were full of praise for him, and associated his name with those of the heroes of the past. Jesus knows that as long as he fulfils their wishes the crowd will be ready to make him king. So long as he is feeding them bread and fish from nothing at all they will keep following him. So long as he performs wonders for them they will remain excited and form great crowds him wherever he goes. But he also knows that the moment he shows them how difficult the road to the kingdom really is, they soon disappear.

People very quickly become disillusioned with God, when God doesn’t give them exactly what they want  and precisely when they want it. He knows that the joyful expectation for God’s salvation that welcomed him as he approached the city will leave him abandoned on the cross by the end of the week. The anti-climax of Palm Sunday is the key to the story. The disillusionment of the crowd is the point. They, we are looking for a demonstration of God’s power. It is the expectation that develops when we make God in our own image. It is what we look for when we think God is our wish fulfilment Disillusionment from this false picture of God is the point of Jesus is trying to make. That is why he sets the Triumphal entry in the way he does. That is why he builds the crowd’s expectation up, only to leave them high and dry when they get into the Temple. He is in control. He will not be controlled by their or our wishfulness. He will not let us go from triumph to triumph. He will not let us go from and excited procession, directly to a celebration of new life. He will not let us go from  Palm Sunday to Easter without taking us through Good Friday first. The crowd, and we, expect a demonstration of God’s power. The problem is neither we nor they know what to look for. Jesus gave us a small hint in the humility of his approach to the city. The disappointment that people experience when God turns out not to be what they expected leads directly to the real demonstration of God’s power. We are given a demonstration of God’s power. Because the crowd do not get what they want on Sunday, because Jerusalem fears and rejects what Jesus brings to them in the following week, Jesus hangs on the cross on Friday. But that is exactly as Jesus has anticipated and precisely as God had intended. That is the real demonstration of God’s power.

Amen.

A Triumphal Approach Leads to an Anti-climax by Christopher Wood-Archer is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 

 

A Sermon for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, Passion Sunday (21/03/21): Those Who Hate their Life Will Keep It.

Those Who Hate their Life Will Keep It

John 12:20-31

There is a paradox, an unresolvable contradiction, which lies at the heart of the human condition. But it is a paradox which also lies at the heart of God’s answer to the human condition, the gospel. 

“Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

The human condition is death. One of the very few things, perhaps the only thing, that every human life has in common with all the others is its ending. The German philosopher Marin Heidegger said: “the ultimate possible possibility will not be outdone.” Philosophers sometimes (often) find complex and convoluted ways of expressing simple ideas. Essentially Heidegger is saying that same thing, we all die. But he says it in a way that draws attention to something more. He says, the last thing that could possibly happen to us, will definitely happen to us. There is nothing that we can do to avoid this possibility. And therefore we shouldn’t try. Which is very close to what Jesus is saying here.

Of course our lives are the one thing that makes everything else possible. Without life, and our possession of it, there is nothing at all. So not not surprisingly our lives are very precious to us. We care very deeply about our lives. Heidegger in fact calls our relationship with our own existence just that “care”. It “concerns” us. To put that into the way which Jesus speaks; we love our lives! And here’s where the problems begin. Our “self-concern” our anxiety over our own existence cuts us from the true source of our life, God. We don’t want to die. We want to resist the reality of our deaths. We want to pretend that it is not going to happen, to ignore its presence hanging over our every living moment. Indeed we would like to prevent it, or at least postpone it as long as possible, and not think about it in the meantime. We want to deny death as the reality of what we are. 

Such denial has terrible consequences for every individual human being and for the the whole human race together. This fear of dying lies somewhere at the back of everything that is wrong. All the misery and destruction that besets the human race and the planet we inhabit, goes back in some way to our denial of what we are and how we are made. Our dread of dying cuts us off from the source of life, God. This alienation, this uncanny, unbalanced sensation which we experience, cut off from God and cut of from one another, has its source in us living or trying to living as if another source of living were possible. So often human beings try to live as if some other source of life were available, apart from God, one which doesn’t involve dying. Which means that the human condition is not only paradoxical, it is also ironic! What happens of course is that we try to grab as much as we can whilst pretending we’re not going to die, or we fill our existence with distractions, be that our ambitions or our  entertainments, or even our religiosity, which anaesthetises us to that horrifying reality.

“Those who love their life lose it.”

This is one of the ideas which Jesus most frequently repeats. Over and over he expresses the same thought. “Those who want to cling onto this life are doomed to lose it.” Jesus again and again reminds us: living as if you are not going to die, living trying not to die, is the surest way of losing the life that you have. Not to mention that living like that harms everyone else while you’re at it. It doesn’t matter how much you grab in the meantime, even if it were the whole world, it would never be enough, death would catch up with you in the end. The ultimate possible possibility will not be outdone!

At this moment in his ministry, in his life, Jesus is very conscious of his death. His consciousness is not that general awareness that dying is unavoidable for all of us. Jesus is not just conscious that he will die as we all will. He is conscious in that more particular sense. He is living in the same awareness that people who have had a diagnosis of terminal illness. His death is very real and very imminent to him. Shortly before Jesus speaks here the Pharisees despairingly predict of Jesus’ ministry:

“You see, you can do nothing. Look the whole world has gone after him!”

Immediately, as if to make the Pharisees words into a prophecy, a group of Greeks approach Philipp wanting an introduction to Jesus. To be clear, these are not just Greek speak Jews, Hellenists, they are actual Greeks, “Hellenes.” They are actual foreigners, outsiders. They are representatives of the whole world which the Pharisees fear is being drawn to Jesus. In the arrival of these Greeks, Jesus recognises that his time has come. Up to this moment over an over, he has said, “not yet.” This is a turning point in his ministry. This is a moment of crisis in his life. This is his terminal diagnosis. Jesus has predicted his death before, even its manner. But up to now it has been in some undetermined future. Now its undeniable reality forces itself upon him. He now recognises with an uncomfortable degree of certainty what is about to happen to him. Because his ministry and mission is now touching the outside world, he knows that quite soon the conspiracy that is forming against him will act. He knows that he will be betrayed and abandoned by his friends He knows that he will be handed over to those who hold power amongst his people and in the world. He knows that he will be rejected and condemned. And he knows that he will be tortured to death by being nailed to a cross, executed as the worst kind of criminal! 

Jesus poses the human question himself:

“And what should I say – ‘Father, save me from this hour?’”

Should he deny the reality of his own death? Should he attempt to avoid it? Should he beg God to prevent it? Jesus life up to this point has been lived like no other human life. Jesus life is lived unseparated from the true source of all life, God. Jesus is the one who has lived without that alienation that all other human lives have suffered. He and his Father have remained united. A little later he says:

“Believe me that I am in my Father and the Father is in me.”

Each moment of his ministry has demonstrated this. Beginning with his temptation in the wilderness and carrying on through the signs which he has performed: Changing water into wine, healing the Royal official’s son at a distance, healing the paralytic at Bethesda, feeding the 5000 from a single packed lunch, walking on water, and giving sight to the man born blind. Beyond these signs, Jesus has repeatedly demonstrated his dependence upon God, in his frequent withdrawals into lonely places in order to pray by himself. And most recently, and what has caused the Pharisee’s dismay, Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead. Only someone with an uninterrupted connection with God could live like this and perform the wonders which Jesus performs.

So, the answer to his rhetorical question is, “no!” His life is the life that has been lived entirely dependent on God and directed always towards the glory of God. Jesus cannot deny that now, confronted with the reality of his death. That would be to undo the rest of his living. His life of giving glory to God includes a ready acceptance of its end.

“No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.”

Jesus often speaks in agricultural metaphors. His parables of farming and growing are frequent. He uses just such a metaphor to speak of his own death.

“Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains a single grain, but if it dies it bears much fruit.”

This is another paradox, another apparently contradictory statement. But this time it is one borne out by experience and in reality. There is no way for that grain  to grow and be fruitful without first being buried. That is the way of things. Jesus must die. He must complete his mission and come to the end of his life still wholly committed to God and God’s way of bringing about a resolution to the human condition. But in facing his death he knows that it will bring much fruit. In case we don’t recognise it; we are living testimony to that. His death is the source of much life. And here we enter another paradox. Jesus’ death is his glory, which brings glory to God. What to the world will look like a humiliating defeat, turns out to be the decisive victory. The adage might put it: “no cross, no crown” Which is merely a dramatic extension of another adage, “no pain, no gain.” Except Jesus’ dying is his crown. His humiliation is his exultation. The cross is his throne! Jesus gives glory to God by refusing to try to live as if he weren’t going to die. He lives the paradox which he announces for us all:

“and those who hate their life in this world we keep it for eternal life.”

Which brings us back to where we started. This paradox lies not only at the heart of the human condition, but also at the heart of God’s answer the Gospel. Jesus’ life and death offers us the possibility of a different life. A life not crushed by the certainty of our dying. Jesus offers us a life that can be lived in all its fullness. He offers us a life which draws its existence and meaning from the true source of all life, God himself. Jesus promises to those who would follow him, who would accept the reality of life as he did, that he would dwell in them, and they would be able dwell in God. From the outside perhaps this looks like it is hating life. From the outside, to those who want to grasp and to cling on, this might look like dying. But to those who have seen the Jesus, to those who have experience the glory of God in Christ’s death, this is life which stretches into eternity.

Amen.

Those Who Hate their Life Will Keep It by Christopher Wood-Archer is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 

 

A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent (14/03/21): Nicodemus is Puzzled by Jesus

Nicodemus is Puzzled by Jesus 

John 3:14-22 

The evening had not got at all how Nicodemus had expected or wanted. He had come to Jesus looking for clarity. He wanted to get from the pious Galilean, of whom the ordinary folk seem so enthused and excited, and whose words seemed to impress even a few of the learned, some sort of an explanation. Nicodemus had come across the city, in darkness, to Jesus’ lodgings, hoping to avoid  the notice of his friends among the council or his enemies. He told himself it was to allow himself to give Jesus a fair hearing without the prejudices of  those other voices. But the truth was he was afraid of the embarrassment or the risk that being seen to associate with so controversial a figure might put him in. Since Jesus had caused that disturbance in the temple, driving away the money changers,  interrupting the supply of animals for the sacrifice.  For a whole day he had brought to a stop to the connection between the people and God which the temple provided. Since that near riot few of the people that Nicodemus knew were prepared to give Jesus  the time of day. How could this man, they asked, how could this man speak for God or even about God when he showed such contempt for the temple and God's anointed priesthood who run it? Though Nicodemus wasn't so sure. Many of the priests he knew were contemptible. And the Temple was seldom the place where he felt connected to God. Nicodemus wanted to be able sit on the fence a little longer, at least not be against Jesus just yet. He wanted to listen some more, but not commit himself openly either, if he  didn't have to.  

But as the evening wore on and as Jesus tried to explain to Nicodemus again and again, who he was, what he was  doing, Nicodemus continued to struggle. Each time Jesus’ words and the thoughts behind them were becoming clear Jesus’  words seemed slippery and their meaning escaped him and Nicodemus was plunged into doubt again: 

“No one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above,” 

said Jesus. Or did he mean “again.” How can anyone be born after having grown old? Nicodemus spoke his thought out loud. The words had slipped out before he could hold his tongue. And Jesus had dismissed Nicodemus' qualification to teach the nation as a consequence. Nicodemus had listened mostly in gloomy silence since then. No, the evening was not going the way Nicodemus had wanted. 

Now Jesus seems almost to have lost sight of Nicodemus sitting beside him at table. The empty dishes from their long finished meal are still in front of them. Jesus has warmed to to his theme. His words spin out, as if he were addressing the whole world and not just his dinner companion.

“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” 

Of course Nicodemus knows the story.  A moment in their people's history. Long ago as they wandered through the desert, and they grumbled. No one could grumble like an Israelite. They had grumbled against Moses and against God. But grumbling never makes anything better only worse. Their exaggeration that they were “literally” dying of hunger and thirst out in this desert suddenly became literally true. As if their words had come back to bite them their camp was filled with poisonous snakes and they really were dying! But God provided an answer, a way for the people to live. Moses erected a cast bronze snake on a pole at the centre of the camp. Whenever anyone was bitten by one of the real poisonous snakes all they had to do was trust in the sign that was given, look toward the bronze snake and they would live.  The poison that had entered their lives would be taken from them. It was a story that had always puzzled Nicodemus. One moment God absolutely prohibited the making of images of any of the beasts of the  earth. The next minute God was commanding it, as a sign of his power to save! 

Nicodemus also knows that this story from their history had also become a metaphor for the real content of their religion. A word picture for the relationship which God intended between himself and his people, a relationship of trust. God's people are meant to believe and trust in God's power to save. Their religion is only meant to be a sign of that trust. The commandments, the temple are not ends in themselves. They have no meaning of their own. What could killing animals or never wearing clothes made of linen and wool actually mean? Nicodemus knows this. The point is trusting God and acting on what God has spoken. It is about showing that you trust God by accepting the sign which God provides, no matter how obscure, or how arbitrary, or even how contradictory that sign might appear. You look to that bronze snake because God had told you to, and to show God you trust God. You act on what God told you.

Though of course Nicodemus also knows that the bronze snake had been melted down centuries ago, precisely because it proved almost impossible not to turn that kind of sign into an idol. Nicodemus recognises the underlying problem with all religion. It can and it does become an end in itself.

But Nicodemus is also beginning to grasp that what Jesus was saying now, just as he had been saying when he emptied the temple. Jesus is saying that he is the sign which God now offers to the people. He is claiming that somehow he will be lifted up, just as Moses had lifted up the snake, that his name would be the one announced and proclaimed for all to see and hear and to respond to. The implication of Jesus words, Nicodemus thinks, if he is hearing him right, the  implication of his words are that he, Jesus, is the Messiah. Jesus is the one to give flesh to God's words. Jesus is the one to look to and trust to be connected to God.  In Jesus the presence of God is so near and so real that he will be called Son of God. And he will be the one to draw all God's people to him and the one to condemn the wicked and the foreign. 

But at the same time in Nicodemus' mind there is a nagging doubt. The lifting up of the serpent story, the bronze snake on its pole being lifted up where everyone could see, there is only one thing in Nicodemus’ mind that reminded him of that and it was not a  good thing. There is only places where sons of men were lifted up on poles like that were on the roads that  approach the city and on the hilltops, everywhere visible. That story only reminds him of crucifixion. When the Israelites turned and saw that, all they saw was the overbearing power of  Empire. Which is what that sign was intended to do. The Empire's enemies are powerless. They stretched out on a cross, nailed, immobile,  helpless.  This is the visible testimony to the Empire's power to crush and destroy. It is constant reminder that violence, horror and death rule in this world. 

What is Jesus saying? Does he say that as Messiah his only exultation, his enthronement as king over God's people, his  proclamation of victory, would be his lifting up on a cross?  And that is the sign contradictory and arbitrary as it is, that is the sign that God's people are to put their trust in? Is Jesus saying that God's victory over the power of Empire would be accomplished in this contradictory,  paradoxical way? 

As Jesus continues to speak his words reminded Nicodemus of another troublesome story, even older than the first, the story of Abraham and Isaac. 

“. . .gave his only Son. . .” 

The words strike a chord with Nicodemus. They remind him that God had commanded Abraham to give his son, his only son, the  one whom he loved, Isaac, to give him as a sacrifice to God. It is a story more puzzling even than the story of bronze snake. It is so because the God of Scripture hates only one thing more than idols, and that is human sacrifice! This story had resonated all the more with Nicodemus since the time he had first become  a parent himself, and he had first felt the powerful attachment of love for his children, and the great cost that love might demand of him at any moment, and the hole that could be torn in his soul should he lose what he loved so much. But Jesus seems to turn that story around: 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him  should not perish but have eternal life.” 

It is God who loves. It is God who suffers that pain of love and loss. God, not Abraham, nor Nicodemus nor anyone else, God is the one to pay the price. That horrifying sign of a crucified and dying Messiah is the sign of God's love toward the world. It is the sign of just how high a price God is prepared to pay for love of his world. It is the cost to God of providing a sign that all people can look to and have life, that life which Nicodemus longs for himself, the life lived in contact with God, transformed by a relationship with God. The life which stretches out from this present moment and on for ever into the hereafter in the everlasting presence of God. Nicodemus senses Jesus’ call, “Turn and look, just as the Israelites did in the desert, turn and look to the sign God provides and live that life.” This is what Jesus saying he and his death will be! Now Nicodemus sees that is what God does. And as Jesus says it: What God does in him. What God does is love not judgement. God does not condemn the world. 

But if all that Jesus says and implies is true then the world condemns itself! When the world's deeds come to light, the world will stand condemned for them.  What greater condemnation could there be than that the world killed God's messiah? That God came to his own and they did not recognise him? That they refused and rejected and killed him? 

“The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because  their deeds were evil.” 

Nicodemus now understands that Jesus presents a crisis of judgement.  The choice is before him and before all people. Just as it had always been before God's people. Trust God and live in relationship with him or perish. Turn to the sign which God provides: be that the Law, or a bronze snake, or the terrifying  word in your heart that calls you to sacrifice your children, turn to God trusting that God  has the power to save and will provide. Jesus now says: I am the sign. Turn to me and live! 

Nicodemus recalls that when he came his was a deed done in darkness. He came under the cover of night. As he steps out of the house after his night in conference with Jesus the dawn is  already breaking over the city. His return journey will be in daylight, in plain sight. The certainty is growing in Nicodemus that Jesus is claiming to be the one sent by God  to give to any who put their trust in him as God's sign, that life in all its fullness, life in God's presence, a quality of living that begins now and goes on into eternity. A choice is being offered, a choice to carry on hiding in the darkness, attempting to remain hidden, fearful of both God and of what other humans can do, or to step out into the light and live in relationship with God through the one God sends,  Jesus. A choice which Nicodemus must make and which stands before us all. 

Amen. 

Nicodemus Is Puzzled By Jesus by Christopher Wood-Archer is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 

A Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent (07/03/21): The Sign of Cleansing the Temple

 

The Sign of Cleansing the Temple 

John 2:13-22 

John's Gospel is a book of signs.  In it there is a series of miraculous occurrences which disclose just who Jesus is.  The first of these signs is the  Changing of Water into Wine. The series leads through the Raising of Lazarus and of course culminates in the Resurrection.  The Cleansing of the Temple is not part of that series. It is not a sign in that formal miraculous sense. But it is a sign nonetheless. It does disclose who and what Jesus is claiming to be. 

Jesus enters the temple.  Its outer court is much more crowded than it should be. Throngs of worshippers are one thing. But the space is constricted by the animal pens holding the cattle and sheep on sale for  the sacrifice  and by the cages holding the doves for those who couldn't afford the cost of those larger animals. And there were the booths of the money changers who change the idolatrous denarii with their graven image of the emperor into the acceptable half shekel piece necessary to pay the temple  tax. The money generated by all this activity is what keeps this great edifice of religious commitment afloat! We can almost picture Jesus, in quiet fury, watching all this going on. He is becoming enraged by how little space or opportunity there is left for prayerfulness or the real content  of faith in God.  Standing aside, he reaches down for a few strands of straw that had become strewn  everywhere from the animal pens, and calmly he plaits them into a cord, a whip.  And then suddenly there is chaos.  Everything is in uproar.  Everyone and everything is moving, people and animals and coins scatter. Jesus sweeps around the courtyard and drives the traders and their wares out. And afterwards, just as suddenly, there is quiet among the debris of upturned tables and broken  down animal pens. 

Jesus is staking a claim to authority in the location where God is said to be really present in the world.  He declares that he has the right to decide what can and can't happen here.  He knows what is best for this place.  And therefore he is staking a claim that it is he who knows and can bring into effect God's will. Jesus makes a direct challenge to the religious elite. He claims that from now on it is he who stands between the people and God. It is he who will mediate God's will to them and their wishes to God. And it is not any longer the  priests and their scribes and their magnificent religious institution that will do this. 

Jesus has looked at what they have done and found it wanting. The priests had clearly decided that it was appropriate even necessary to bring the trade in animals and money inside the temple itself. They turned the temple into a market place. And no doubt they were making a healthy  profit as a result. This for Jesus is the clearest indication that the priests and their allies have ceased to be reliable go-betweens for God to his people. They no longer have any moral claim to speak for God to the people, or to speak for the  people to God! 

Not unnaturally the “Jews” take exception to this. The “Jews” from John's northern Galilean perspective could just means “Judeans,”  southerners! The ones who are offended by Jesus are the urban religious elite. It is the ones who are in charge  here who take exception. They are the ones who like such people always and everywhere have a vested interest in everything staying calm and nothing changing. The “Jews” demand a sign – I told you John's Gospel was a book of signs The leaders demand a sign of Jesus' authority.  What can he show them that will indicate that he does indeed have the authority, the right, to  overrule the existing authorities and to overturn the established religious order. For that is what he is doing, his actions, if they were allowed to stand, would effectively abolish  the religion that they had known up to this point. And this would render the religious elite redundant  and powerless. 

Jesus offers them a sign. He does propose a test of his authority:

"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." 

To Jesus' opponents his offer sounds like a bluff.  His claim is ludicrously overblown.  They look at Jesus and see a man, a carpenter.  They see someone who presumably must know how long building work takes. He claims that he, one worker in three days can do what they with goodness knows how  many workers, a hundred, two hundred, hadn't succeeded in doing in almost 17000 days! 

They are sure it is a bluff. But it is a bluff they can't call. They have too much invested in the temple. Their power and prestige depend on the temple. They cannot pull it down.  That would be like sawing off the branch they were actually sitting on. If they destroy the temple their power and their ability to speak for God would be gone, regardless of what Jesus did afterwards. They can't risk destroying the temple. Jesus' claim now goes far beyond claiming to have authority in this place. What he is saying now is that he can even replace the temple. He is saying that the location of God's presence has shifted. It has moved out of this magnificent building on its mount in Jerusalem  and into something he, Jesus, can personally provide. And the temple leaders cannot do anything to prove Jesus wrong. 

And there must also have been that grain of nagging doubt in their minds That awkward suspicion. That the claim that Jesus is making is so absurd, so overblown, that no one would dare to make it unless  it were true. In their minds if Jesus has actually wanted to prove he was the Messiah he would have offered them something  more reasonable, something more plausible. He would have suggested something that they would have been embarrassed to refuse but would have risked him pulling off. A stunt from a false messiah. But this! The anxiety ate away at the back of their minds, this might actually be true! 

But they cannot do it. The only way the destruction of the temple could have taken place on that day is if the  Priests and their supporters had actually believed and accepted Jesus. The could only have done what Jesu asked if they had accepted that Jesus is indeed anointed by God and empowered to do the impossible. But if that had been the case. They wouldn't have questioned Jesus' authority in the first place. 

Have we come full circle?  Does Jesus present the same challenge to us as he did to the temple authorities,  the one John refers to as Jews/Judeans? The temple has been replaced by Jesus as the location of God's presence in the world. And it is us, we Christians, the Church who are to convey the reality of that presence to a  waiting world, just as the priestly class was supposed to have done in the days of the  temple. Except are we proving any more reliable mediators of God's presence and faithful  witnesses to God's will than they were? 

They turned the temple into a market place, somewhere unrecognisable as the place to  encounter God. Have we turned ourselves into something we should not be? Have we created a situation where no one thinks to come to us when they are looking for God? A phrase I find I keep using is: “The chief obstacle to belief in God, is other believers in God.” That was certainly something that was true of the Priests and their Temple. The chief obstacle to belief in God is other believers in God. And if that is so. are we being challenged, in the name of Christ, to tear down all that we have made,  everything that is now getting in the way, and allow Jesus to rebuild it? 

But the sign of course was given. There is a sign that Jesus does have the authority.  There is a demonstration that he does have the authority to overrule the religious establishment. He does hold authority to unmake and remake the way God's presence is made real and made  known in the world. Those who came to know Jesus, and to love and trust him, his disciples, looking back  recognise that there was more Jesus' words than anyone on that day had realised. Looking back, and their perspective is the same as ours, hindsight, looking back they  and we realise there is something else in Jesus' challenge. John puts it plainly, just in case, even with hindsight we don't spot it: 

But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 

The realisation, and the ongoing central claim of Christianity that Jesus in person really  does replace the temple as the location for God's presence and action it the world. 

A question might be. Did Jesus intend “this temple” to mean himself at the time he spoke? We can't say because his hearers, whatever Jesus meant, didn't tear the temple down.  The bricks and mortar temple was left standing for the time being. They turned against Jesus and tore him down instead. So inadvertently they do take up Jesus' challenge. Their destruction of Jesus is an ironic acknowledgement on their part that he has become  what the temple previously had been.  And Jesus' proves true to his word. That “temple” is indeed reconstructed in three days. It is a that is sign hardly less improbable than rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem in so short a time. But it is the sign which is given. Jesus proves to be who he appears to be. His words and his claims are fully vindicated. He does indeed have the authority to act the way he acts and to demand what he  demands. Believing that requires that we do what he tells us to: Love one another. And by loving tear down everything that gets between us and our neighbours and God.

Amen. 

The Sign of Cleansing the Temple by Christopher Wood-Archer is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0