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.

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.  But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. 

 

- John 2:13–25 

 

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.  Yesterday's reading gave us the sixth and seventh days of the beginning of Christ's earthly ministry, corresponding to the sixth and seventh days of creation in Genesis 1.

 

  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."  In the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this event occurs at the end of Christ's ministry (it is His first act after the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem beginning what we know as Holy Week).  But here in John's Gospel, it is placed at the beginning.  There are some patristic commentaries that Christ performed this act twice.  Those who sold oxen and sheep and doves traded in live animals which were to be used for sacrifices. Those who sold doves are profiting from the smallest animal for sacrifice, the one the poorest would purchase.  The money changers were trading Roman coins for Jewish coins; Roman coins had the image of Caesar on them (treated as a god) and so were considered to be defiling in the temple.  My study Bible comments that the cleansing of the temple also points to the necessity that the Church be kept free from earthly pursuits.  In the verses that follow, Christ will speak of His body as a temple.  But we are reminded that each person is considered to be a temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19), and so the cleansing of the temple is also a sign that our hearts and minds should be cleansed of earthly matters that draw us away from the love and guidance of God.

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.  As Jesus is not a Levitical priest, my study Bible explains, His authority to cleanse the temple is challenged by the religious leaders in the temple.  The term the Jews, some say, is more properly translated as "Judeans."  In this context, we remember that the temple is in Jerusalem (in Judea), and Jesus is from Galilee, where His ministry is based.  Moreover, by the time this Gospel was written, persecutions had begun of the followers of Christ.  So, this term "the Jews" when it appears in John's Gospel is used most often to indicate the religious leaders.  Here it refers to the chief priests and the elders (see Matthew 21:23).  We need to recall that Jesus, His family, and His disciples (including John the author of this Gospel) are all Jews.  My study Bible also comments that as Christ is careful not to reveal Himself to scoffers, He answers in a hidden way:  the ultimate sign will be His death and Resurrection.  

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.  But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.  In John's Gospel we find three Passover feasts reported that were attended by Jesus, between His Baptism and Passion (see also John 6:4; 11:55).  This is how we know His earthly ministry lasted three years. 

 

 It's interesting that today's passage ends with this statement:  But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.  Over the course of the past several readings -- in particular the readings of Wednesday and Thursday, when Christ was choosing His first disciples -- we have seen Christ repeatedly using this characteristic, that He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.  This is part of His divinity, and He is known as the Discerner of Hearts.  In the Book of Acts, there is a particular Greek term applied to Christ, a noun used when the disciples, now founding the Church, seek Christ's discernment through prayer.  That word in Greek is καρδιογνώστης/kardiognostes ("heart-knower").  It's usually translated by invoking an address to Christ, using the term Lord, or God, referring to One who knows the heart (see Acts 1:24; 15:8).  But the term "heart-knower" as direct translation from the Greek, is important, as it gives us a solid and foundational identity of the Lord, and this expression manifest in the person and ministry of Jesus Christ, as experienced and witnessed by the disciples.  For this is part of the power of faith, a kind of experience that they who knew the human Jesus Christ have witnessed directly, but that all believers can witness through prayer and worship in spiritual experience, if you will.   With the experience of living our faith, we come to perceive that Christ knows our hearts before we do, and we continually witness through the stories in the Gospels that Jesus manifests this ability; it is characteristic of Him.  There are times when He will assertively draw out from people their heart's desire by asking, for example, "What do you want Me to do for you?" (Matthew 20:32 and other locations).  But in John's Gospel, we have already understood it clearly established that this is part of who Christ is; it is part of the manifestation of His divinity even in the human Jesus in the world.  It is in John's Gospel that Jesus explicitly tells us (in His final address to the disciples at the Last Supper), "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him" (John 14:7).  This is such an important tenet of our faith that we must remember it when reading the Gospel, for it is one of the purposes of the Incarnation, that through Christ we know God the Father.  We are given explicit knowledge of God's desire to save, to heal, to restore, together all of us to God.  This is God's love explicitly expressed for us, so that we know God's love, and we learn love as well.  Again, it is John the Evangelist who will also tell us, "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love" (1 John 4:8).  The "heart-knower" then, we can be assured, is also love, and the author of love, the One who teaches us love -- and we need love to know God.  So when we read in today's reading that Christ also fulfills the prophesy of the Psalmist, "Zeal for your house has eaten Me up" (Psalm 69:9), we should know also that this zeal is a zeal born of love, a compassionate, rigorous love for human beings who need God and God's love.  The full text of that psalm verse reads, "Because zeal for Your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on Me."  This is surely true of Christ, who out of love bore those reproaches Himself.  Let us consider today that zeal, the love that motivates Christ to cleanse the temple for it is the place where the people are cared for and nurtured by God, but unfortunately can also become a place of corruption, where people are led astray.  May we all carry and experience Christ's love for ourselves, and grow in that love in response.