Zeal for your house has eaten Me up

Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, "Take these things away! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!" Then His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up." So the Jews answered and said to Him, "What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?" Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Then the Jews said, "It has taken forty-six years to build the temple, and will You raise it up in three days?" But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.

- John 2:13-22

Yesterday, we read about the first sign in the gospel of John. It was during a wedding feast at Cana, at which were also Jesus' family, His mother and brothers, and His disciples. Prompted by His mother to do something when the hosts ran out of wine, Jesus first asks, "What does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come." But later He instructed the servants to fill up the water jars, made of stone for reasons of ritual purity. Jesus then instructed them to draw some out, and give it to the master of the feast. When the master tasted it, he said, "You have kept the good wine until now!" John tells us: This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him. After this He went down to Capernaum, He, His mother, His brothers, and His disciples; and they did not stay there many days.

Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. It's quite interesting to note that in this beginning of John's gospel (we are only in the second chapter), events take place at quite a fast pace. On the first day, John the Baptist was baptizing beyond the Jordan near Bethany, and Jesus found disciples through him. On the second Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and found Philip and Nathanael -- Philip, Andrew and Peter are all from Bethsaida, we are told. On the third day, Jesus, His extended family and His disciples all attend a wedding in Cana of Galilee, to which they were all invited. They all went to Capernaum afterward, which is Jesus' Galilean headquarters for His ministry, and we're told "they did not stay there many days." Now is the Passover, the first Passover of which we'll read in John's Gospel (there will be three all together), and Jesus goes up to Jerusalem and the great temple for the feast.

And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. In John's Gospel, this is the first encounter Jesus has in the temple at Jerusalem. All the vivid miraculous events that we will encounter from now on in this gospel will be associated with religious feasts -- the major Jewish feasts. The Passover commemorates God's saving work on behalf of His People, the Israelites in Egypt. The angel of death "passed over" the homes of those whose houses bore the marks of the blood of the lamb. But Jesus finds sellers and buyers and exchangers of coin doing a brisk business in connection with the feast.

When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, "Take these things away! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!" This act of cleansing the temple takes place in the other Gospels during Holy Week, but John places it at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. St. John Chrysostom believed that Jesus cleansed the temple twice, at the beginning and the end of His public ministry. What we can assume by this reading is that Jesus comes to fulfill the Old Covenant, and also to create a new one, and establish a new kind of worship. It is also - as in the synoptic Gospels - an act of authority belonging to the Son, to Jesus' authority as Messiah. In this act we find a vivid statement about the power of faith and prayer, their central role in all forms of worship and relationship to God. It is this faith relationship that Jesus seeks to expand and establish as the central piece of religious life for all believers, the heart of all liturgy ("the people's work"). The commercialism in the temple helps to separate the people, in some sense, from this true business of the temple. It is particularly penalizing to the poor. My study bible notes that this act, coming at the beginning of His ministry in John's gospel, establishes that Jesus' ministry is not like that of the prophets -- to renew the Old Covenant. Instead, it is an institution of a new kind of worship altogether.

Then His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up." It's interesting that we see the action of faith in the disciples; they recall a verse from Psalm 69 (Psalm 69:9). If we read the whole of the Psalm, it refers to one who is humiliated and persecuted because of his great love of God, and an identification with God. In the Psalm's later verses we read more that is relevant to this scene of cleansing, "I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. This will please the Lord more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hoofs. The poor will see and be glad—you who seek God, may your hearts live!"

So the Jews answered and said to Him, "What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?" We remember that "the Jews" in John's gospel refers to the leadership of the temple. This is a reasonable question, on its face, as to Jesus' authority -- who can take the authority to cleanse the temple but the Messiah?

Jesus answered and said to them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Then the Jews said, "It has taken forty-six years to build the temple, and will You raise it up in three days?" But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said. Jesus does refer to the great sign of His identity: His Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. But of course, this is done in a subtle way. John reports that the disciples remembered this after Jesus had risen from the dead. Of course, the temple leadership cannot understand what He is talking about, the reply is for the disciples and those who will believe. The leadership replies referring to the rebuilding of the temple by Herod the Great, which was begun in 20 B.C.

We have intersecting layers of faith at work in this story. John refers us not only to the time he's reporting, this first Passover at the beginning of Jesus' ministry, but also to the faith of the disciples, and what they recall after Jesus' death and Resurrection. We see the contrasting levels of faith in the leadership and the disciples -- the leadership scoffs and has no idea what He can mean. In the next chapter, we will find one Pharisee who also becomes a believer, and who will play a heroic role in the events that come to pass immediately after Jesus' death. So, in addition to the layers of spiritual reality, of relatedness and faith that we find so far in John's Gospel, we also are introduced to a sense of time as something that intersects in different ways than the way we normally experience it. Faith intersects various points and experiences in life, so that, looking back, we see connectedness where originally there was seemingly none. The disciples recall the words of the Psalmist and know they apply to Jesus. Later they will recall, after His death and Resurrection, what He said to them here in this scene at the first Passover of John's Gospel -- "and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said." Memory and time interconnect in ways outside of our linear sense of time, in this Gospel -- which poetically is not written as the other three, called the synoptic Gospels. John gives us a powerful sense of the ways in which faith works. In today's case we must also apply the experiences of God and faith both to the ancient Israelites during the first Passover in Egypt, and to those who struggle and are divided through a temple system which has come to include the commercialism Jesus seeks to cleanse in order to restore the relationship of prayer front and center. He is the fulfillment of the Law, and yet He is also here to establish New Covenant of faith. Let us consider, then, the nature of our own faith -- how do different experiences in our lives connect into the growth and realization of our faith? How do the things you learn shed light on various aspects of faith you may not have understood at a certain point but can reflect upon now? "Memory" will always play a great role in the life of faith, as we also are taught to "remember God" -- recalling our minds to God in prayer and relationship. So the times of our lives and our experience of faith -- and with one another in faith -- can move us toward a greater understanding of God, a deeper relatedness within our lives, a greater wholeness as we learn to "devote ourselves and our whole lives to God." Time may intersect for us in ways that connect moments of seemingly unconnected experiences. Let us consider, then, the moments of our lives, our encounters with faith in prayer, in worship, and with one another that may bring us to a greater wholeness in God. Let us count them as John shows them to us, as events that may mysteriously link to reveal to us a deeper sense of who we are, and how we live in God, and in God's rest. Christ opens up for us a new sense of that worship, and what it is to rest in God.