Today's Scripture verses come again from John chapter 2 and cover the section on Jesus cleaning out the business going on in the Temple. My St. Simons translation of these verses looks like this, starting in verse 13:
The main festival of the Jewish nation was at hand, the Passover, when the people went up to the Temple in Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice, according to the Law of Moses. Jesus went also and came into the Temple area. There He saw people selling oxen, sheep and pigeons, animals designated by God as sacrificial material, in the Temple area. There were also men changing the Roman and other foreign currency into the coins that were acceptable to the Jewish religious authorities so that the Temple tax could be paid with material that did not bear any image.
Jesus saw all of this and was disturbed, so He made a whip of cords and drove all the animals and merchants out along with the money-changers, telling those involved (as well as those who were there and were listening and watching) to "Take all this stuff out of here, do not turn God's house of worship into a common house of trade".
Why was Jesus so consumed with anger (righteous indignation) over the practices of the Jews in the Temple? Was it because the people were being taken advantage of by having to pay exorbitant prices for the sacrificial material or not getting a decent rate of exchange on their offering money? Surely God was not being honored and reverenced through these practices, but could it have been more than that?
Was the hubbub taking away from worship? Were the people coming into the Temple distracted by the buying and selling into forgetting the real reason they were there? Were the traders adding to worship or taking away? Was Jesus upset at the Jewish leaders for allowing all this to happen, indeed making money off the practice? Was He angry at the people, or the practice, or both?
It is easy to see how Jesus would be upset if the people were being cheated as they came, but was this the only reason. He said, "get all this stuff out of here, don't make a house of worship a house of trade". The Jewish leaders would have said, and rightly so, "we are just making these things available in this spot for the convenience of the people, so they could get what they needed to keep the Passover and thus to fulfill the Law".
Are we guilty of the same thing in our church today? How much of what we do is a distraction? Even if our motives are pure, and we want people to experience true and meaningful worship, are we helping or hurting?
What would Jesus say to us? I wonder....
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