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 this 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 that there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.  Now both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding.  And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, "They have no wine."  Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me?  My hour has not yet come."  His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it."  Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece.  Jesus said to them, "Fill the waterpots with water."  And they filled them up to the brim.  And He said to them, "Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast."  And they took it.  When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom.  And he said to him, "Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior.  You have kept the good wine until now!"  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.  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."  John's Gospel is organized differently than the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  Here in John Jesus attends the first of three Passover festivals that John reports to us, and it is here, in contrast to the other Gospels, that a cleansing of the temple takes place.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke report this event at the beginning of the last week of Jesus' life, the end of His ministry.  Certain Church Fathers teach that Christ performed this act twice.   Jesus in every report of this act goes after those who are using what is holy merely for prophet.  Those who sold oxen and sheep and doves do so for sacrifices.  The money changers exchange Roman coin for Jewish, since the Roman coins had the image of Caesar and were therefore considered defiling.  What is holy is not meant merely for trade, as a market place.  In conjunction with this cleansing of the temple, we are to understand our hearts and minds also are not to be used merely as a place of "trade" with respect to our faith, as each person is considered to be a temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19).  The Scripture recalled by the disciples is from Psalm 69:9.

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 this 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.  We have just read of the first sign in John's Gospel, the changing of the water into wine at the wedding at Cana (yesterday's reading, above).  So here, when the officials in the temple ask Him to prove identity and authority to cleanse the temple by performing a sign, we already know that this is something possible for Jesus.  He's not a Levitical priest, so on these grounds His authority is challenged.   We must also remember that in John's Gospel, the term the Jews is mostly used as a kind of political term, to indicate the leaders.  Here the term is used to refer to the chief priests and the elders (see Matthew 21:23).  Despite the fact that we know He is capable of producing a sign, he won't reveal Himself to scoffers.  Jesus answers in a hidden way that is revealed through faith:  the ultimate sign will be his death and Resurrection. 

John's Gospel has already begun to teach us that there are ways of hearing Christ's words that point beyond the words themselves.  Like the signs in his Gospel, of which the turning of water to wine at the wedding in Cana is the first, everything about Jesus points to something more, something beyond.  His words are the same.  Often Jesus will say things that have meanings far beyond the surface value that conventional understanding can give to the words.  John's Gospel teaches us this kind of looking and seeing and understanding.  When Jesus cleanses the temple in such a vivid way (we're even given the detail of Him making a whip of cords), He says, "Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!"  But we're to think beyond this vivid literal scene, and to understand that what is holy can't be thought of as "merchandise," as something to be bought and sold.  Our souls aren't bought and sold, and our lives aren't just commodities.  Neither is the virtue we develop through faith.  What belongs to the kingdom of God "lives" in a different place, a different kind of reality, and it is that reality that is present Incarnate in Jesus Christ.  He is the kingdom of heaven brought near, and we belong to Him as much as we do to anything or anyone else.  This is the point of the Gospel, of His ministry, of the telling of Jesus' story.  Jesus refuses to produce signs of the presence of the Kingdom on demand for those who scoff, who won't have faith in Him, who think of themselves as His (and in effect, God's) judges.  He responds to the demand for a sign by telling them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up."  He's speaking, of course, of His Resurrection.  But it won't be until that event happens that even Jesus' disciples come to understand what He's really saying here.  The same is true of the Scripture quoted from Psalm 69, "Zeal for your house has eaten Me up."  It is later when the disciples understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of this Scripture.  It is faith that gives us insight and discernment, that opens up perspectives and vistas we are not able to grasp if we see what is holy the same way that we see merchandise or trade.  There is something more that we must be a part of to come to see all the things that are really present here.  It is the capacity for faith that will show us what is really there, what God has to give us, the meanings and values and depth of intangibles that become a part of our souls in God's love for us.  This is why a sign won't be produced like a commodity, like a piece of merchandise on demand.  There is something more that is present here, a something more that Christ demands that we have spiritual eyes and ears to see and to discern.  It doesn't work by "worldly" rules or conventional aphorisms.  When we start to understand that, we begin to understand what John's Gospel offers to us, that something so much more than meets the eye or the ear on worldly terms.  We begin to enter into the Gospel of love, that builds up who we are, how we see, how we hear, and gives us relationship with God who is love.  This is the journey we are on, the place Christ is here to reveal to us.