[0:00] And Jesus went into the temple of God and cast out all of them that sold and bought. Worship this morning's holy gospel in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
[0:13] Why was Jesus so angry? Today's gospel tells us that when Jesus went into the temple in Jerusalem, He angrily cast out those that sold and bought, overthrowing the tables of the money chambers.
[0:30] Why did He do this? The lesson says, Jesus was angry because people were defiling the temple.
[0:52] The temple was to be the place where God's people could worship Him in spirit and truth, and it was being used as a marketplace. For thieves. This was not the first time Jesus expressed anger because the temple was being defiled.
[1:09] In St. John 2, verses 13-17, we are told that at the very start of His earthly ministry, right after the miracle of Cana, He cleansed the temple a first time.
[1:21] In that account, St. John says, Jesus made a corded whip out of rope to drive the animals out and poured the money being gained onto the floor.
[1:36] Why was Jesus so angry? He was angry because of sin. He was angry because what they were doing with the temple was sinful.
[1:51] St. John 2, verse 17 states, It is written, The zeal of thy house has eaten me up. Jesus was zealous for God's temple and was angry because sin was being allowed to defile it.
[2:08] That was the old covenant temple. Jesus is also zealous for God's new covenant temple.
[2:20] And He is so in two ways. First, He gets angry when church buildings dedicated to the worship of God are defiled by sin. When denominations and pastors change the truth of God into a lie and worship and serve the creature more than the creator, spewing lies within their church buildings.
[2:44] When they do this, Jesus gets angry. In His three-year earthly ministry, Jesus' deepest anger was directed towards the religious leaders because they taught lies as if they were the truth.
[3:04] In St. Matthew, chapter 15, verse 9, Jesus said to them, But in vain they do worship Me, teaching the doctrines, teaching for doctrines, the commandments of men.
[3:18] In our day, it started with the social gospel. Now it's the social justice gospel. And then it's going to be the woke gospel. They're false gospels. They're lies being taught as truth.
[3:32] And Jesus is angry about them. In our day, as those who've been baptized and confirmed in the faith of the one holy Catholic and apostolic church, we must steer clear of denominations and pastors that defile the temples built for the worship of Jesus, whose teachings, whose teachings, whose teachings, each people's ears at the expense of the truth.
[4:04] As much as Jesus is zealous for those buildings dedicated to the worship of God, He is even more zealous for another new covenant temple. He is zealous for us.
[4:16] He is zealous for the temples that we are. You and I are the temple of God. In baptism, the assured presence of the Holy Spirit was imparted to us.
[4:32] When we partake of the Holy Eucharist, Jesus Himself comes to dwell within us and we in Him. The Father has set us apart for His glory to worship Him with our lips and in our lives in spirit and in truth.
[4:51] Every place we go, not just here on Sunday morning, every place we go, we are to be worshiping God with our thoughts, our words, and our deeds.
[5:02] We are the temple of God. We are the members of the body of Christ on this earth. This being so, Jesus gets angry when we defile this temple.
[5:19] He is incarnate by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary to redeem. 1 Corinthians 3.17 states, If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.
[5:32] For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. What defiles the temple that we are? The same thing that defiled the temple in Jerusalem.
[5:46] Sin. When we give in to sin, and especially if we live a life of sin, we defile God's temple. 1 Corinthians 6.19-26, He states, What?
[6:03] Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and that you are not your own? We don't own this.
[6:15] God does. For you are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which belong to God. Theologically, this is antinomianism.
[6:29] People say, well, I can have a spiritual relationship with God and do whatever I want with my body and my life. They're separate. That's a heresy. What makes us human is that combination of body and spirit, and both have been redeemed by Jesus Christ.
[6:44] That's why He came in the flesh. Not just to redeem the soul, but to redeem the body, to redeem the whole creation. It's all His. He paid for it on the cross.
[7:00] As incarnate God, the Word made flesh, who dwelt among us, Jesus paid the ultimate price for us. He gave His life for our sins. Therefore, when we sin, defiling the temple, He has forged us to be by His own precious blood.
[7:16] His zeal for us raises His anger. And in contrast, when we utilize the temple Jesus has forged us to be as God intends, then He's pleased, and He instills the zeal that He has within us.
[7:37] And we begin to follow Him the way He has called us to do. This morning's epistle lesson instructs us how we can keep our temple holy, which simply means set apart for God to use for His glory.
[7:56] It doesn't mean we get some shiny thing around our heads. It just means we're following Christ. We are men and women after God's own heart. The epistle says, holy temples love their neighbor as themselves, therefore fulfilling the law.
[8:14] Holy temples cast off the works of darkness and put on the whole armor of light, the armor of God. Truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and sacred scripture.
[8:27] Ephesians chapter 6. Holy temples live lives that are honest before God and honest before one another. Holy temples do not live to pursue worldly things.
[8:40] They, like Jesus, are zealous for their pursuit of those things that glorify God and serve His people. Holy temples live lives free of strife with and envy towards one another.
[8:57] Overall, holy temples, as Romans 13, 14 states, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts.
[9:11] In this world we live and give into perversion, we always think of lust in just a sexual way. It could be that, yes, but lust is far more than that. Lust is unfulfilled self-love.
[9:24] When we try to self-love using the things of the world instead of the things of God, we lust for them. It could be for money. It could be for material things.
[9:35] It could be for power. It could be just for our own ego. If we lust for those things, if we desire those things to fulfill us, we lust after them. St. Paul says, holy temples make no place for such things.
[9:53] For such things. My brothers and sisters, Jesus was angry when he entered the temple in Jerusalem on the day because it was being defiled with sin.
[10:05] His was a righteous anger. Those whom his father had entrusted the temple to had turned it into a den of thieves and Jesus' zeal for God consumed him with a holy anger.
[10:21] Jesus feels the same when we defile the temple that we have entrusted with. The temple that we are. Our bodies, our souls, our lives. His zeal for what his father has recreated us to be consumes him.
[10:38] And he seeks to overthrow and cleanse all that defiles us. But he cleanses us not with overturned tables and courted whips.
[10:50] No. He cleanses us by the power of his word and the sacraments. He washes us with his pure word, sacred scripture.
[11:01] He casts out our sinfulness with baptism in the Holy Eucharist. He cleanses us with his merciful grace. In this Advent season, may we take hold of that grace and use it to keep the temple that we are holy, making no provision for the sins that defile it.
[11:30] In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.