Worship without reverence!

John 2:13-22

It was time for the annual Jewish Passover celebration, and Jesus went to Jerusalem. In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices, and moneychangers behind their counters. Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out, and drove out the sheep and oxen, scattering the moneychangers’ coins over the floor and turning over their tables! Then, going over to the men selling doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Don’t turn my Father’s House into a market!” Then his disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: “Concern for God’s House will be my undoing.” “What right have you to order them out?” the Jewish leaders demanded. “If you have this authority from God, show us a miracle to prove it.” “All right,” Jesus replied, “this is the miracle I will do for you: Destroy this sanctuary and in three days I will raise it up!” “What!” they exclaimed. “It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can do it in three days?” But by “this sanctuary” he meant his body. After he came back to life again, the disciples remembered his saying this and realized that what he had quoted from the Scriptures really did refer to him, and had all come true!

Food for thought!

We started Lent in the wilderness or desert (1st Sunday), then we went to the Mountain top (2nd Sunday). Today, we are in the Temple of the Lord. Like the desert and the mountain top, the Temple is a holy place. Unfortunately, the Temple Jesus went to was no longer a meeting place of man with God; it was rather a meeting place of man and man, trader and buyer.

It means that we go to churches to meet not ourselves; we go to meet God. We do well to reserve those few hours at church for God. What enraged Jesus was seeing worship without reverence. He saw people inside the temple doing everything but praying. The people had turned the holy place into a marketplace. On that Sunday, in the holiest temple on earth, there was worship without reverence. People had gone to the temple not to worship but to trade and to conduct business.

In God's house at Jerusalem there were all kind of noises. The lowing of the oxen, the bleating of the sheep, the cooing of the doves, the shouts of the hucksters, the rattle of the coins, the voices raised in bargaining disputes--all these combined to make the Temple a place where nobody could worship. The traders were not praying, and were not letting those people who wanted to pray pray. This is what moved and moves Jesus to anger.

I wonder what Jesus would do if he were to visit our churches on Sunday morning. The truth is that Jesus does show up at every church because in Matthew 18:20, he promised to be where any two or three believers gather in His name.

Let us remember the wrath of Jesus against those who made it difficult and even impossible for others to make contact with God. Let us learn to respect holy places, holy times, holy objects and holy people.