Good morning, church. Our sermon text today is John, chapter 2, verses 12 through 22.
Let me invite you to turn there with me. John, chapter 2, verses 12 through 22.
Let me pray for us, and then I'll read the text. Let's pray together.
Father, our Father in heaven, we pray that your name would be hallowed, that your kingdom would come, and that your will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.
God, we ask that in this time as we turn to your word, that your Holy Spirit would come and give us the grace of illumination so that we might understand the things that you have recorded for us.
Lord, not just so that we might gather new information, but so that we might see Christ more fully and be more transfigured and transformed into his image, conformed to his likeness.
We pray this in his name. Amen.
John 2, verse 12.
After this, he, that is Jesus, went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting there.
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.
And he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away.
Do not make my father's house a house of trade.
His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me.
So the Jews said to him, what sign do you show us for doing these things?
Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
The Jews then said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?
But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
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.
Well, one of the wonders of living in the time that we do is that so many of the things that a generation or two ago would have been almost unthinkable
have now become incredibly convenient.
For example, if I want a new book, a simple online order will drop it at my door in a day or two.
If I need a bag of groceries, I can do curbside pickup, and the store will put it right in the trunk of my car.
I don't even have to get out of my car to do grocery shopping.
If I want to talk to my extended family, a simple tap of a button on my phone, and I can see and hear their faces from hundreds of miles away.
It's all so massively convenient.
And that, in many ways, is a good thing.
But convenience can sometimes come with a price.
Social media makes sharing ideas and photos with my friends very convenient,
but it also creates, at times, a social echo chamber where I never really meaningfully engage with people outside of my tribe.
Ordering a book through Amazon puts it conveniently at my doorstep, maybe even the next day,
but it also forces many local bookstores to dwindle and perhaps close,
and neighborhoods lose places where new ideas can be shared and real relationships formed.
Convenience comes with a price.
Now, what our passage today puts before us is a very bracing question.
Am I, are we, allowing our worship of God to be marred or even lost?
In the name of convenience.
Let me show you from our text what I mean.
This event in Jesus' life is often called the cleansing of the temple.
And here, in this episode, we see two things.
First, we see Jesus confront convenient worship.
And then second, we're going to see Jesus cure convenient worship.
So first, we see Jesus confront convenient worship in verses 12 through 17.
Let's look at those verses again.
Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for the Passover feast.
Now, John mentions the Passover a number of times in his gospel.
And Jesus, in obedience to the law, participates in this annual worship gathering in the capital of Jerusalem.
Now, the Passover feast commemorated what?
It commemorated Israel's liberation from slavery in Egypt.
The Exodus, the great act of rescue in the Old Testament,
where God, remember, judged the Egyptians in a series of judgments called plagues.
And the sort of climactic judgment of all was putting to death all of the firstborn in the entirety of Egypt.
And that was a judgment that would have come to the Israelites as well
had not God provided a way for that judgment to pass over them.
And that way that God provided for his judgment to pass over was for a lamb to be sacrificed.
And in every household, as a substitute for the firstborn,
the lamb would die instead and God's judgment would pass over that house.
So this was what the nation remembered year after year after year.
And so Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for the annual feast.
And the center of worship in Jerusalem, the heart of the festival, was the temple.
Now, the temple in the Old Testament was the place where God met and dwelt with his people.
You know, this longing, this urge to commune with God,
you see it in almost every human culture, don't you?
And so in most human cultures, we see temples of some kind.
A place where finite humans can try to meet what is infinite and what is transcendent.
A place where finite humans can get in touch with ultimate reality with God.
But those temples that are strewn across the ancient world were but shadows and distortions of the real thing.
Do you remember when Paul walked into Athens and Acts and he saw the massive number of idols and altars there
and how it broke and upset his heart?
But he noticed there that there was one altar dedicated to an unknown God.
And so Paul says, men of Athens, I see that you're religious in every way.
But what you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
People hunger for ultimate reality, for communion with God, but we don't really know how to get it.
But the true God, the God of the Bible, has made a way for us to do that.
And in the Old Testament, when his people were living in tents in the wilderness after the Exodus,
God said, I'll come and I'll live in a tent right there in your midst.
So he commanded Moses to build a tabernacle, which was a tent,
where he would dwell in the midst of his tent-dwelling people.
And when his people lived in houses in the promised land,
after they had settled in the promised land,
God said, I'll live in a house right there in your midst.
And so he commanded David and Solomon to build the temple, the house,
where God would dwell in the midst of his house-dwelling people.
And when in judgment Solomon's temple was destroyed by the Babylonians,
and then when in grace God brought them back to the land after the exile,
nearly the first thing that God tells the people to do is what?
Build the temple.
Build the place that will signify my dwelling right in your midst,
your creator and your redeemer.
Because that's why I've made you, God says.
That's why I've rescued you.
I've made you and I've rescued you to dwell with me.
And in dwelling with me to bear my image.
And in bearing my image to spread joy and glory through the whole creation.
So Jesus, on the Passover, goes up to the temple.
Now the temple complex in Jesus' day had been greatly expanded.
There's mention of that in verse 20 of our passage,
when the Jewish authorities say,
it's taken 46 years to build this temple.
Now what's being referred to there is the sort of constant construction in Jesus' day
that had built and rebuilt the courts and greatly sort of repaired the temple proper.
So the temple was really not just sort of one sort of temple proper,
but a whole complex of courts and courtyards and colonnades.
So when it says in verse 14 that Jesus entered the temple,
it means sort of the temple area or the temple complex.
The massive courts that surrounded the actual sort of temple building itself.
And when Jesus enters the temple area,
he finds something there that greatly disturbs him.
In the outer court, there are animals being sold.
And there are money changers exchanging currency.
Now why was that going on?
Well, think about it.
People had to travel, sometimes multiple days,
to get to Jerusalem for the annual feasts.
So rather than sort of take your sacrifice with you on that long journey,
this is sort of how I imagine them taking their sheep with them.
It's probably not how they would have done it.
And you have to feed it, and you have to water it,
and you have to clean up after it.
Instead of doing all that, you could just arrive in Jerusalem.
You just buy your sacrifice when you got there.
And the money changers were also providing,
I think, what we would have thought of as a helpful service.
Again, people were coming from all over for the annual feasts.
And all these different locations where people were coming from,
it wasn't like today where there were like one or two currencies
that kind of enveloped whole continents.
No, all these different locations had their own forms of little local currencies.
So the money changers would allow you to kind of take your petty little local currency
and exchange it into the local money.
So you could do all your transactions.
So you could pay your taxes and do all that good stuff.
So think about it.
It was a pretty good setup.
People are coming from far away.
Don't bother them with bringing their own animals
or searching all over to find a currency exchange.
Let's set it up right here.
You come to the temple.
You buy your sacrifice.
You exchange your money.
You're good to go.
And bonus, rather than any of the kind of modest profit that's made
going to benefit someone else, it goes to the temple.
It's a win-win.
You get your cows.
You get your coins.
And the temple is supported.
What could be better than that?
Why wander the streets of Jerusalem looking for what you need?
Just put it right here in the temple courts.
It is the ultimate inconvenience.
But Jesus will have none of it.
None of it.
He makes a little whip of reeds or cords,
and he uses it to start driving the animals out.
And if you've ever tried to get an ox to move,
you know why Jesus had to build a little whip
to get the animals to leave.
And he walks up to the money table,
and he flips it over.
And he goes to the pigeon sellers,
and he says,
pick up your cages and get out of here.
What others saw as this beautiful convenience,
Jesus sees as a complete tragedy.
Why?
Didn't Jesus want the pilgrims in Jerusalem
to be able to offer sacrifices according to the law?
Didn't Jesus want people to have the right currency
to pay their taxes and get their sacrifices and all that?
Well, Jesus didn't have a problem with any of that, actually.
It wasn't the activity that he had a problem with.
It was the location.
You've made my father's house a house of trade.
The courts are supposed to be places of prayer,
of reverence.
These courts are meant to be set apart,
a place that's set apart for worship.
And instead, you've made it a barnyard and a bank.
Just imagine what this would have been like.
Now, I know a lot of us like to grab a cup of coffee
or a quick breakfast before coming to church.
You'll often see the Lauer family at Brueger's
around 845 when we're on our way, right?
But, you know, we could make it really easy for people
if we just set up right in the back of the church,
right behind the soundboard, a coffee shop.
You know, right next to Jess, right next to Kevin,
maybe where that book's little pamphlets are.
We'll just stick a coffee shop, bam, right there.
We'll put an espresso machine back there.
We'll put a barista there.
We'll put some breakfast sandwiches there.
And then after you check in with the ushers,
you can just walk right over there whenever you want.
Get a coffee, get an egg and cheese sandwich.
How sweet would that be?
You get your coffee, you get your breakfast sandwich.
Maybe the church gets a little proceeds.
Win-win.
The sermon starts to bore you.
It goes a little long.
You can get up and get an espresso
and make it through points five and six of the sermon.
How sweet would that be?
Not that sweet, right?
Not that sweet.
Because while we're trying to worship,
we'd be constantly interrupted by the whirl of the coffee machine,
by the casual conversation of the clients,
the rattle of the coffee mugs going into the dishwasher.
It would be a mess.
But think of how much worse it would have been
for the worshipers in Jesus' day,
worshiping not just next to the aroma of a coffee machine,
but next to the aroma of a cattle stall.
Most of us who live in the city
don't really know what that's like, do we?
But here's the real hitch.
This only impacted some of the worshipers.
If you were a Jew,
you didn't have to stay in those outer courts
with the clinking coins and the bleeding sheep.
You were actually allowed to go into the next courtyard
and get away from all that stuff.
But if you were a Gentile,
if you were an outsider,
you had to stay outside in the outer court.
You had to pray next to the banks in the barnyard.
So do you see what was happening?
Not just had a place reserved,
set apart by God,
a place set apart by God for prayer and awe,
not just had that been turned into a noisy marketplace,
but the place where outsiders
could actually connect with the true God
in a world of idols,
the place where outsiders could connect with the true God
had been overrun
for the sake of the convenience of the insiders.
The religious folk,
the insiders,
the haves,
had done all sorts of things
to make their worship experience easier.
But who paid the cost?
The irreligious folk,
the outsiders,
the have-nots.
And that gets right down to the heart of the matter.
However,
the impulse to put cows and coins
in the courtyard of the temple
is driven by a heart
that wants to make worship
a convenient religion for some
instead of a gospel message for all.
So we need to check ourselves.
I'm sure that the first person
who had the idea
of putting a money-changing table
in the temple courts
was not thinking,
you know what will really dishonor God
and exclude the very people
we're supposed to be evangelizing?
Let's put a money-changing table right here.
Let's do it.
That's not what they were thinking.
They were thinking,
what will make it easier for us
to worship?
And what can be wrong with that, right?
But it's the wrong question.
The question cannot be
what will make it easier for us
to worship?
The question has to be
what will honor God
and make it possible
for them to worship?
Worship isn't about serving my needs,
but exalting God
and drawing all peoples to Him.
And that's what gets Jesus fired up
in our passage.
His disciples then and now
need to remember
that it was written,
zeal for your house
will consume me.
Jesus is passionate
about the honor
of the Father's name
and the gathering
of all nations
to worship Him.
And if our convenience
gets in the way of that,
we need to be ready
for Jesus to flip some tables.
are we in danger of this today?
What things do we do
while maybe making it easier for us
might inadvertently be making it harder
for others to worship?
You know, it's easier at times
to use kind of insider language
or Christian-y jargon
rather than attempting
to explain things clearly.
You know, it's a comfort.
It can be a comfort
to insiders
to hear certain phrases
thrown around.
But that can be kind of confusing
for the outsider
or the newcomer
who has no idea
what a hedge of protection is
or whatever.
You know, these kind of phrases
that we grow up using
as Christians.
And God certainly isn't honored
by empty, jargony phrases.
Or it can be easier at times
to harp on the shortcomings
or the failures
of the prevailing culture around us.
It can be easier
to just sort of harp
on the shortcomings
that we see around us
rather than at the same time
attempting to reform
and renew
and critique
the church's shortcomings.
In other words,
it can be comforting
for the insider
to hear a bold critique
of this or that,
but it can be confusing
for the outsider
when it seems like
the only social issues
that are being critiqued
are some and not others.
We condemn this or that.
Why aren't we talking
about our own shortcomings?
It's easier to stick
to familiar patterns
or rhythms in worship.
It's more convenient
to sing the same familiar songs
that's more comfortable
to dress in a certain way,
to sit in the same spot.
It's so easy to slide
or drift into doing
all the things
that will make it easy
and convenient
for the already religious folks
to practice their religion
and go home affirmed
in their performance.
It's so easy to do that.
But throughout the Gospels,
Jesus saves his most
stringent critiques,
not for the wayward pagan,
but for the self-satisfied churchgoer.
I think this might be one reason
why John puts his account
of Jesus cleansing the temple
at the beginning of his Gospel
rather than at the end.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke
recount Jesus cleansing the temple
at the end of Jesus' ministry.
But John, perhaps for some thematic reasons,
or perhaps because Jesus
actually just did it twice,
wants to mention it here
at the beginning,
right here,
after the wedding of Cana.
Remember the wedding of Cana
that we talked about last week
where Jesus,
in a very sort of secular setting,
rescues a wedding feast.
He turns water into wine.
And in so doing,
He rescues the reputation
of a young groom.
A young groom who is on the verge
of total social shame,
who gets all the credit
for what Jesus did.
Remember?
The master of the feast
comes to this young groom.
What does he say?
Did you hear what Jesus did?
No, he looks at the young groom
and says,
you did something great.
You saved the best wine until now.
And there's the young groom.
I'm thinking,
what did I do?
He did nothing.
And Jesus did everything.
And the young man
got all the credit.
And that's how Jesus treats those
who know that they've blown it.
He rescues us from shame
and gives us joy
without our desert,
without doing anything
to deserve it.
But here in the second half
of John 2,
we see how Jesus treats those
who think they've got it all together.
Who think they can use
a religious system
for their own convenience.
And to the self-satisfied
religious folk,
Jesus gives them judgment.
So which one are you?
Are you the groom
who knows that unless someone else
comes to the rescue,
you're done for?
Or are you trying to find
an easy, convenient religion
that will tick the boxes?
Do you want to just do
the right thing,
go through the motions,
preferably without too much
inconvenience or cost
so you can get back
to your life?
And if we're honest,
I think we all,
at one point or another,
fall into that latter category.
So what do we do?
Where do we go?
Well, thankfully,
Jesus doesn't just confront
convenient worship
in this passage, right?
He also,
in a little bit of a cryptic way,
points us to the cure.
In verses 18 through 22,
Jesus points us to the cure
for convenient worship.
Now let's look at those verses again,
18 through 22.
And the first thing that happens here
is that the Jews,
now in John's gospel,
the phrase the Jews
is going to come up
again and again and again.
And that almost always means
the religious authorities
in Jerusalem,
not every single Jewish person.
After all,
Jesus was a Jew.
So when John says the Jews,
he's talking about sort of
the religious authorities
in Jerusalem.
So these religious authorities
come up to Jesus
and they basically say,
what gives you the right
to tell us
how to do things here?
Show us some sign
that you have the right
to do this.
In other words,
you better have a miracle
up your sleeve
if you're going to start
telling us how to do things
in this house.
And Jesus says,
okay,
I'll give you a sign.
Destroy this temple
and in three days
I'll raise it up.
And of course,
they have no idea
what Jesus is talking about.
And the disciples
didn't get it either.
It's taken 46 years
to rebuild this place,
Jesus.
We can do it in three days.
But Jesus wasn't talking
about the stone temple
that was around them.
Jesus was talking about
the flesh and blood temple
standing right in front of them.
His own body.
What gave Jesus the right
to exercise authority
over the temple in Jerusalem?
The same thing
that gave Jesus the right
to stand up
in the synagogue
and read Old Testament texts
from Isaiah
or Jeremiah
or Moses
and say,
today,
these things are fulfilled
in your hearing.
You search the scriptures
thinking that in them
you're going to find
eternal life.
But it's they
that witness about me,
he'll say later
in John's gospel.
And just as the texts
of the prophets
are fulfilled
in Jesus,
so the temple itself
and all that it stood for
is fulfilled
in Jesus.
The temple
was the place
where God
and humans
could meet.
where God says,
I will dwell
in your midst
and you'll commune
with me.
Remember?
God says,
you live in a tent,
I'll live in a tent.
You live in a house,
okay,
I'll live in a house.
But when the fullness
of time came,
the word became flesh
and literally tabernacled
among us.
God's desire
to commune
with his people
reached its climax
in the incarnation
of Jesus Christ.
Here,
in the body
of Jesus,
God and humanity
meet once for all.
You live in the flesh,
I'll come and live
in the flesh.
So the Old Testament temple,
the Old Testament temple
was like a shadow
cast backwards in time
and the one
casting the shadow
was the Lord Jesus Christ.
What gave Jesus
the authority
over the Jerusalem temple?
The temple was about Jesus
the whole time.
It was his.
And when he rose
from the dead,
his disciples got it.
They understood.
The penny dropped.
In the resurrection
of Jesus from the dead,
all the things
that Jesus said
finally had proven
to be true.
And all the scriptures,
all the things
that the scriptures
had said about the Messiah,
well,
they proved true as well
in him.
And because Jesus
is the true temple,
the true place
where God and humanity
meet,
it means the cure
of our convenient religion.
Why?
Well, think about it.
The reason
why
we want to put
coins and cows
in the temple courts
is because we're
trying to make it
easier for the insiders
to fulfill
our religious obligations.
We've got to try
to lower the bar
and help each other
out here, right?
Let's make it easier
to keep the rules.
But Jesus
drives them all away.
Don't make it easier,
he says.
Don't turn my
father's house
into a place
where you can
simply execute
an easy transaction
and go home.
If you approach
worship like that,
you've missed the point
altogether.
Why?
Because the point
of the temple
wasn't to lower the bar
and make it easier
for us to reach the mark.
The point of the temple
was to show us
that we needed
someone else
to meet the mark
and pay the price.
Because when you
went to the temple,
what did you see?
You saw a glorious
building that represented
God's presence
in your midst,
and then you saw
a closed door
and a thick curtain
that said,
you can't get in here.
And then you would
look around
and you would see
sacrifices taking place
morning and evening
and monthly
and at festivals.
But friends,
consider
what Jesus has done.
Look at the inconvenience
of our Savior.
Yeah?
Leaving the riches
of heaven,
Jesus takes on flesh
and becomes poor.
Living a life
of perfect love
and obedience
to the law,
amidst constant scorn
and misunderstanding,
Jesus lays down
his own life
as a sacrifice for sin
and rises again
to bring life
to all who believe.
You see,
Christianity
isn't some convenient
religion that we have
to perform.
It's news
about the one
who went to the depths
of inconvenience
and shame
because he loved
sinners like you
and me
and wanted us
to have fellowship
with God.
At the center
of our worship
is no longer
a temple
and a sacrificial system,
but the Lord Jesus
who is the true temple
and the true Passover Lamb
who takes away
the sin of the world.
You see, friends,
you don't have to search
the world over
to find a temple
where maybe you can
get in touch with God.
The temple came to you.
And you don't have to find
elaborate rules
and rituals
and sacrifices
to somehow get inside
that temple, right?
Because that was the trick
with temples
in the ancient world.
Once you got there,
you had to get in.
But the temple
didn't just come to you.
Sacrifice
came to you too.
Behold the Lamb of God
who takes away
the sin of the world,
John the Baptist said.
And right there
on Passover,
Jesus drives out
the sacrifices
and says,
don't make my father's house
a house of trade.
Don't make this easier
because I'm the one
who's going to pay
the price for you.
We don't meet with God
in a place
but in the face
of a person,
the person of Jesus.
And friends,
if he is the center
of our worship,
then the question
can never become,
how can I make this
more convenient
for me
and for those like me?
If the Lord Jesus Christ
is the center
of our worship,
then the question
will never be,
how can I make
worship of Jesus
more convenient
for me
and those like me?
He died for me.
The only question now
is how can I take up
my cross
and follow him?
He laid down
his life for me.
So the question now
is how can I lay down
my life for others?
Am I willing
to be a little
inconvenienced
so the name of Christ
can be honored
and so the nations
can know the joy
of entering
the kingdom of God?
Am I willing
to be a little
inconvenienced
for that?
Huh!
What seemed
like an inconvenience
before
now becomes
no inconvenience
at all.
Like the apostles
in Acts 5
who rejoiced
that they were
counted worthy
even to suffer
for Jesus' name.
It wasn't
an inconvenience
anymore.
It was a privilege.
The apostles
were glad
to be counted
worthy
even to suffer
for his name
for the name
of the one
who loved us
and died for us
and rose again
in victory.
What are we not
willing to do
for him?
What are we not
willing to do
so that others
might know him?
If the church
gets a little full
are you willing
to sit in the overflow?
Willing to be
a little inconvenient
so that others
can know
the name of Jesus?
If the service
starts to fill up
would you be willing
to be inconvenienced
to go plant a church
so that others
can know
the name of Jesus?
But I like it here.
I like the stained
glass windows.
It's so great.
Well yeah
it's pretty convenient
to just walk across town
and come to church
isn't it?
But would you be willing
to be inconvenienced
so that other people
can come and have a seat
and hear about
the name of Jesus?
Friends, if the Lord Jesus
incarnate, crucified,
and risen
is the true temple,
the true place
where God and sinners
meet,
then we have found
the cure
of convenient
self-serving worship.
And we can be a church
that honors the name
of God
and that exists
not for itself
or our own comfort
but for the good
of our neighbors
so that they might know
God and Christ as well.
Let's pray.
Lord Jesus,
it's right
to give you praise.
So we praise you
this morning.
We thank you
that we don't have
to travel
miles and miles,
days and days
to find the place
where we can meet
with you
but you've poured
out your spirit
so that we can
meet with you
wherever.
You are indeed
the place
where God and sinners
meet, Jesus,
and we praise you.
Help us
to have a growing
zeal
to see your name
exalted
and spread.
We ask this
in your name.
Amen.
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