Sunday, March 8, 2015
Lent 3
Exodus 20:1-17 / Psalm 19 / 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 / John 2:13-22
You Took My Place
There’s a story about a man who visited a church. He
parked his car and started towards the entrance. Another car
pulled up nearby, and the irritated driver said to him, “I always
park there. You took my place!”
The visitor went inside and discovered that a bible study
was taking place before the service. He took a seat and sat
down. A class member approached him and said, “That’s my
seat! You took my place.” The visitor was somewhat distressed
by this rude welcome, but said nothing.
After the bible study class the visitor went into the
sanctuary and sat down in an empty pew. Within moments
another member walked up to him and said, “That’s where I
always sit. You took my place!” The visitor was again troubled,
but said nothing.
Later, as the congregation was praying that Christ would
be present with them during their worship, the visitor stood,
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and his appearance began to change. Scars became visible on
his hands and on his feet. Someone from the congregation
noticed him and cried out, “What happened to you?” The visitor
replied, “I took your place.”
We are always concerned, it seems, that someone is taking
something from us that is rightfully ours. Have you ever
mistakenly stepped ahead of someone in line at the
supermarket? I have and, did I get a blast. “Who do you think
you are? I was here before you,” the person screamed at me.
We are sometimes worse than territorial animals. We
snarl at anyone we think is taking our place. We demand to have
what we think is rightfully ours. Yet, do we stop to consider that
Christ took something from us that is rightfully ours, our sin.
When he suffered on the cross, he was taking our place, the
place where we deserve to be.
We might be less snarly over people taking our place, if we
stopped to consider that sometimes we benefit greatly from
people taking our place. Jesus took our place on the cross.
Sometimes, there are ordinary people who take our place so
that we will not suffer as we deserve. What about the soldier
who dies in war to protect us? He is taking our place, is he not?
What about the responsibilities that we neglect at our
workplace? Someone else has to do them in our place. What
about the things that we should know how to do but refuse to
learn how to do? Someone else has to do those things for us.
They are doing them in our place. What about the things we
find too distressing to do, things like talking to people about
sensitive subjects, confronting difficult people, dealing with
controversial matters. Someone else has to do these things, if
we refuse to do them. Someone does them in our place.
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If someone jumps in front of me in line at the
supermarket, I try to ignore it. I say to myself, “I can make at
least this small sacrifice for all the times that other people took
my place and did things for me that I could not or did not do for
myself.”
When Jesus drove the moneychangers out of the temple,
some people said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing
this?” In other words, they were saying, “What gives you the
right to do what you have done? Show us some evidence that
you have this right.” Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and
in three days, I will raise it up.”
In other words, Jesus was saying that his body was a
temple and his body would be destroyed to save God’s people.
He would be taking their place on the cross to suffer for their
sins. That is what gave him the right to confront the money
changers as he did.
The temple was built for the sake of making animal
sacrifices to save the people from their sins. An animal was
offered on the altar as payment to God for sin. Yet, as so often
happens in religion, the people missed the point. The buying of
the animals to make the sacrifice became more important than
the purpose of the sacrifice. The point was to save people from
their sins. Yet, the business making opportunities around the
religious practise became more important than the religious
practise. Entrepreneurs saw a great opportunity for making
money. They set up a marketplace in the outer court of the
temple to sell animals for sacrifice. They would charge a high
price for these animals, declaring that the convenience of buying
animals right at the temple warranted the high price. Moreover,
the animals had to be paid for in Jewish money. Therefore,
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foreigners who had come to the temple for Passover had to
change their money into Jewish money. Here was another
money making opportunity. Money changers set up shop in the
outer court of the temple, and they also charged a high exchange
rate, declaring that the convenience of changing your money
right at the temple warranted the high rate. Shady businessmen
looked for opportunities to gouge people in Jesus’ day, just as
they do today.
The fact that the shady practises of the business culture
had invaded the temple, and the fact that the people seemed to
attach more importance to these business making opportunities
than to worship itself was what made Jesus so angry. This,
then, is why Jesus became so angry that he actually upset the
money changers tables and poured the coins on the ground.
This, then, is why he drove the sheep and the cattle out of the
temple with a whip. Then, he declared, “Take these things out of
here! Stop making my Father’s house into a marketplace.”
When some people challenged him for doing such a thing,
when they asked him what authority God had given him to do
such a thing, Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three
days I will raise it up.” In other words, Jesus is saying that he
will become like one of the animals that were being bought for
sacrifice. He would be sacrificed on the cross for the forgiveness
of sins. It was as if he was saying, “I can drive these animals
destined for sacrifice out of the temple because I am soon going
to become one of them. And no one will have to pay money for
me. No money changer will need to take an exchange fee for me.
I will sacrifice myself without cost for all. I will give myself out
of love.”
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In fact, Jesus meant to replace the whole temple system
with his sacrifice on the cross. He would become the new
temple. No longer would people need to come to the temple in
Jerusalem to make sacrifices. His sacrifice would be the one and
final sacrifice for all. He would take the place of all God’s people
on the cross.
By becoming the new temple, the temple in human form,
Jesus was trying to enter our hearts. The Jews were surrounded
by religion. The temple had the most prominent place in the city
of Jerusalem. Yet, despite the high profile that religion had in
their daily life, it seemed that religion had not entered their
hearts. It is the same way in the Christian world today. It
reminds me of a scene in the movie, The Godfather, Part III. Don
Corleone, the Godfather, is forced to visit the distinguished
Cardinal Lamberto to tell him that a legitimate business deal
involving the Vatican Bank had gone bad. The bank is run by the
Archbishop and a coalition of businessmen. The Cardinal listens
to Don Corleone, then the Cardinal says something very
profound. He picks up a stone and says, “Look at this stone. It
has been lying in the water for a very long time. The water has
not penetrated it.” Then, he smashes the stone. “Look,” he says
peering at the smashed inside of the stone, “perfectly dry.” The
same thing,” the Cardinal continues, “has happened to people in
Europe. They have been surrounded by Christianity for
centuries, but Christ does not live in their hearts.”
The hardest hearts in the world are not among
unbelievers, but believers. Believers can wear religion like an
overcoat. It is on the outside. It has not entered the heart. As
Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:5, “They had the form of godliness,
denying its [real] power.”
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Jesus became the new temple because he wanted to
appeal to our hearts. The hymn says, “See from his head, this
hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down. Did e’er
such love and sorrow meet or thorns compose so rich a crown?”
Jesus took our place on the cross hoping to open our hearts so
that we might let him in, so that our religion might become more
than an outer layer, but something that lives deep within us.
We know when religion is in our hearts if we are
motivated primarily by love. The sign of a true Christian is not
fear, not doctrine, not laws, not judgmentalism, not the desire to
exclude and marginalize other people, but love. Christ took our
place so that his love might cause love to be born in us.
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