John 2:13-22

From the Calm Before to the Storm in the Temple

Jesus arrived in Jerusalem to celebrate the sacred festival of Passover. He just departed Caana of
Galilee, where He celebrated a peaceful wedding. At that wedding, Jesus began His public
ministry by the miraculous turning stale water into the finest of wine for the guests to enjoy.
Jesus continued in that ministry all the way to the cross, changing, purging, renewing, healing
infirmities; casting out demons and evil and bringing fresh new joyous life at every opportunity –
JUST AS HE DOES TODAY!

As soon as Christ enters the temple, He is confronted with a hustle bustle business being carried
on within. The scene can probably be compared to a flea market atmosphere, where bargaining
and commerce was rampant.

How offensive this must have been to God the Son! The temple was to be a place of worship not
business. Conniving merchants began by taking advantage of the opportunity to sell animals, for
the purpose, of sacrifice at the altar. Money changers set up business to facilitate the exchange of
currency.

Can’t you just picture in your mind what that would look like.

It so offended Jesus, that He created a whip made of rope and began driving the animals and
vendors from the temple. He toppled the money changing tables and “cleansed” the temple.

Jesus has a singleness of purpose – the sanctity of the temple. His words make quite an impact
when He says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”. The response was
typical of not getting the picture. Jesus was referring to the temple of His body. John says that
His disciples finally understood and believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.
(vv21-22)

We most of the time forget to see the real truth and see with human eyes at what is only in front
of us. Jesus reminds us this morning to see the deeper truth. We are the temple,just as he was
broken and restored in three days we too must think deeply about us as temples and how clean
we are. Do we have a jealous heart, gossiping heart, hatred in our hearts, mistrust or unwilling
heart. Let me share with a story.

A senior priest and I went for a visitation once. Because we didn’t see this perishner for a long
time. And as we were going to his house we both talked about it and as a human we assumed the
worst, he is drinking too much and sleeps on Sundays or grogs too much and cant wake up on
sundays and so on. , When we reached his house and we entered he saw us and his eyes lit up
and was very happy to see us, and after we prayed for him and his family we found out that both
his wife and he had lost their jobs a month before. They were now at a stage that they could not
even catch a bus or buy anything because all their resources had depleted. As we were leaving he
insisted we have a meal with him and told his wife to cook for us. they lived in an small house so
we could see everything and as they open the cupboard and we both saw they only had 1 tinfish.
But they made it regardless, after they made it and we shared a meal, we both looked at each
other our eyes were almost busting into tears. I tell you that was the best meal we had, ever!.

This shows how our temples are, this man regardless of his troubles trusted on god, and shared
the last thing he had from the GOODNESS of his clean heart. Though time has passed and they
are both good now I never forgot what a clean temple meant until that day. They had nothing but
their hearts and temples were so clean they shared what they had with us though gods love.

Let us go from here and think about our own temples and the cleanliness of it. Let us renew
ourselves today and serve god in our own capacity. That others may see Christ’s love and temple
in us.