Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?

 

 Now while they were staying in Galilee, Jesus said to them, "The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up."  And they were exceedingly sorrowful.

When they had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax came to Peter and said, "Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?"  He said, "Yes."  And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him, saying, "What do you think, Simon?  From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?"  Peter said to Him, "From strangers."  Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are free.  Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, take the fish that comes up first.  And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you."

 

- Matthew 17:22-27 

 

Yesterday we read that when Jesus (together with Peter, James, and John) had returned from the Mount of Transfiguration and come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, "Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water.  So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him."  Then Jesus answered and said, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?  How long shall I bear with you?  Bring him here to Me."  And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.  Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, "Why could we not cast it out?"  So Jesus said to them, "Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.  However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."

 

 Now while they were staying in Galilee, Jesus said to them, "The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up."  And they were exceedingly sorrowful.  This is the second time that Jesus predicts His death and Resurrection to the disciples (see the previous time at Matthew 16:21).  In repeatedly warning the disciples, He shows to them that He is going to His Passion freely, and He is not being taken against His will.  

When they had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax came to Peter and said, "Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?"  He said, "Yes."  And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him, saying, "What do you think, Simon?  From whom do the kings of the earth take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?"  Peter said to Him, "From strangers."  Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are free.  Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, take the fish that comes up first.  And when you have opened its mouth, you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and you."  My study Bible explains that the temple tax was an annual head tax on all male Jews (except the priests) over twelve years of age, and was for the maintenance of the temple (see Numbers 3:43-51).   It says that since Jesus is the Son of God, He is both High Priest and "proprietor" of the temple.  Thus, He is exempt from the tax.  But nonetheless, He pays it anyway -- both in order to avoid unnecessary offense and also to show that He has totally identified Himself with mankind.  

Jesus instructs Peter, a former fisherman, now made by Christ a "fisher of men" (Matthew 4:19), to go to the sea, and in the fish that comes up first will find a piece of money in order to pay the temple tax.  The temple tax was a half shekel, required by all males regardless or wealth or status (except priests).  So the shekel in the mouth of the fish is enough for both Peter and for Christ.  But Jesus makes it clear that in His identity as Christ, the Son of the living God in accordance with Peter's confession (Matthew 16:16), His nature is of One who should be exempt in praying the tax.  He is Son of God, and also the son of King David by lineage.  But Jesus' miracle of the fish establishes several things at once.  First of all, He addresses an attack made upon Himself by those who have done so through the embarrassment of His disciple, Peter.  Jesus, in some sense, fulfills all righteousness (Matthew 3:15), by paying the tax as the human Jesus whom others do not know nor realize is both a son of David and also Son of God.  He also pays for Peter, covering Peter's embarrassment before others within his own community of Capernaum.  Not only is a miracle the way by which Christ chooses to do so, making it perfectly clear what His own nature is for Peter and the disciples (and we who read the Gospel), but the coin that comes out of the mouth of the fish bears in the image of Caesar.  Various Church Fathers, including, for example, Apollinaris, have suggested that this coin is in some sense representing Christ's crucifixion, the offer of His Body to us as sacrifice for our salvation.  What is given up is that which was demanded by Caesar, so to speak, whose image is on the coin.  But the true image of Christ, the Person of Christ, can never be sacrificed nor given up -- and it is His image that He in turn will place in us.  As with His own sacrifice on the Cross, He will give up His human life in order to "cover" each of us, all of our spiritual debts in some sense; He pays a "tax" to the "prince of this world" but in so doing, He redeems all of us, and His sacrifice continues to have this power through the transforming power of God to defeat death and sin.  It is His act of self-chosen sacrifice which in effect redeems, liberates all of us from the evil one.  So when we think of this scene, and Jesus' instructions to Peter the fisherman whose very livelihood has been transformed to God's purposes and mission and service, let us consider how Christ can do the same in our lives.  For His sacrifice is for all of us, and His Cross will show each of the ways to transfigure our lives, and ways in which our own sacrifices can be rendered for the service of God.  The "miraculous coin" in our own lives gives us the meanings meant for each, given in turn by the divine image of Christ within each of us through faith.  For we also are the fish drawn out of the sea by the fishers of men commissioned by Christ.