I remember when I had first started working in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry several years ago. I had been assigned to be the production supervisor over our sterile cleanroom used to fill injectable medications. My buddy and fellow supervisor, Joe, told me to think of myself as the character Pig Pen from the Peanuts comic strip whenever I entered the cleanroom.
If you have never watched a
Charlie Brown special or read the Peanuts comic strip you might not be familiar
with Pig Pen. He was a character who
always looked disheveled and filthy.
Wherever he walked a cloud of dirt surrounded him contaminating
everything and every person he contacted.
This is how we are taught to
think of ourselves when operating in a cleanroom environment. We are the dirtiest thing in the room, potentially
shedding skin particles, hair follicles, and bacteria over anything we touch in
that sterile production area. In short,
we were the greatest source of contamination and the greatest threat to that
environment.
As I was reading this week’s
lectionary lesson from the Gospel of John, I could not help but be reminded of
this image of Pig Pen.
“The Passover of the Jews was
near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
And within the temple grounds He found those who were selling oxen, sheep,
and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. He made a whip of cords and drove them all
out of the temple area, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the
coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were
selling the doves He said, ‘Take these things away from
here; stop making My Father’s house a place of business!’ His disciples remembered that it was
written: ‘Zeal for your house will
consume me.’ The Jews then said to Him, ‘What
sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy
this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It took forty-six years
to build this temple, and yet You will raise it up in three days?’ But He was speaking about the temple of His
body. So when He was raised from the
dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture
and the word which Jesus had spoken.” -
John 2: 13-22
At first glance at this passage,
it can be confusing to understand why Jesus reacted the way he did. Afterall, it was the Jewish Passover, the holiday
which commemorates the deliverance of Israel from the hand of the Pharoah of Egypt. The Mosaic law prescribed that every household
in Israel should sacrifice a lamb so that the Passover could be acted out annually
through the communal Passover seder meal.
Not only that, but there were the
routine sacrifices made to atone for the sins committed by the people and nation
of Israel.
So of course, there were stalls
of businessmen selling doves, sheep, goats, and cattle for the sacrifices. There were money changers to exchange
currencies used across the Roman Empire for the temple coins, thought to be
pure, for use in Temple transactions.
Why would Jesus be so indignant
that these things should be so?
It turns out that these
activities were tied to a lucrative racket, led by none other than the temple
priests. The temple priests would allocate
space for stalls to vendors. Typically,
the space allocated for vendors was the court of the Gentiles. This was an area set aside for non-Jews who wished
to worship the God of Israel and were in the process of converting to the one
true religion to pray to Him without contaminating the inner areas of the
temple where atonement was made for sins.
The market activity allowed to take place in this area undoubtedly
disrupted their ability to petition the God of Israel and seek his favor.
But this wasn’t the only offense. The rent for these spaces, because there was
so much demand, could be quite hefty. The
vendors in turn would sell their wares or provide their services at a premium
price so that they could both profit from the transaction and pay off the
temple priests. The result was that those
who came to the temple to worship were price-gouged in a way that made a
mockery of the worship being conducted at the temple complex.
The whole process was contaminated
by avarice and sin. Everyone knew it,
everyone participated in it, and everyone condoned it. The very process that was meant to give the
people assurance of God’s favor was contaminated through and through with sin.
No wonder Jesus was outraged. Sinful men had profaned and contaminated the Most
Holy of places on earth.
And yet, this was nothing
new. As the prophet Isaiah instructs us,
“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are
like a polluted garment.” – Isaiah 64:6
Even at our most Holy and
righteous, our deeds are polluted by sin, they are filthy and worthless
rags. Like the Jews in Jesus’ day we
come before the Lord with covetousness, lust, anger at our neighbor, apathy at
the sin in our own lives, in our households, and in our communities. We are like Pig Pen, sullying everything we
touch, blaspheming the Holy as vulgar and profane.
We deserve so richly the wrath
that Jesus hinted at in his response to the money changers and sellers of
cattle.
And yet, it was never God’s will
that his favor should be dependent upon our Holiness or upon our works.
For even when the temple was
established, God said through the prophet Nathan to David, “Should you build Me
a house for My dwelling? For I have not
dwelt in a house since the day I brought up the sons of Israel from Egypt to
this day; rather, I have been moving about in a tent, that is in a dwelling
place. Wherever I have gone with all the
sons of Israel, did I speak a word with one of the tribes of Israel, whom I
commanded to shepherd My people Israel, saying ‘Why have you not built me a
house of cedar?’” – 2 Samuel 7:5-7
The work at the temple built by
men was never intended to be the solution to the problem of sin. In fact, God’s original instructions to the
Israelites was to make a tabernacle or tent, that he would move among
them. And even this tabernacle was
pointing to a greater and better reality and promise. As the author of Hebrews instructs us, “They
[the priests] serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent,
he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to
the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’ – Hebrews 8: 5
John shows us the better way, the
way that could not be contaminated by the sins of men. “And the Word (the pre-incarnate Christ)
became flesh, and dwelt (or tabernacled) among us.” John 1:14
Christ dwelt among us, living a
life unstained by sin. He was righteous
and it could be truly said that by Him, God was well pleased.
In this account of the temple
cleansing, John reminds us that the Temple of stone and the work performed by
men were merely temporary signs to point us to a greater reality. He reminds us that our works, our
righteousness, and our holiness are but sad attempts to fulfill the righteousness
of God. They are wholly inadequate to
the task of earning God’s favor.
In this account John reminds us that
Christ became the temple which no human hand could soil and by which sin could
not profane. We learn that his life and
works were the means by which we are purified, made holy, and reckoned as
righteous before God.
Instead of trumpeting our
holiness, we point to God’s grace that He should send His Son to bear our sins
upon the cross. We rejoice that His
righteousness might be credited to us, and that our sin might be taken
away. “He made Him who knew no sin to be
sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” –
2 Corinthians 5: 21
Therefore, as we gather in God’s
house on this Sunday, let us not put our confidence in the quality of our
worship or the purity of our works. Let us
instead place our faith securely in our Savior, who rendered his flesh as the temple
that could not be stained by the sin of our hands. Let us rest secure in the hope that though
our works are but filthy rags, we too have been cleansed through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Amen.
