Monuments

Passage: Luke19:45-48

Each of the four New Testament Gospels includes the account of “Jesus cleansing the temple.”  In each, Jesus arrives in Jerusalem, enters the outer (or “Gentile”) court of the temple, and begins to drive out and overturn the tables of “the money changers and those who were buying and selling”.  Why does Jesus make such a scene?

Jesus clears the temple.  Why?

According to Jesus’ own words, “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

What’s Jesus talking about?

For the history of God’s chosen people, God has allowed them select monuments, or physical reminders of his presence with them.  During their sojourn in the wilderness, God instructed the Israelites to periodically build altars, and provided them the tabernacle, a portable worship space.  Once they were well-established in their own country, God blessed his people to build a permanent place of worship.  It was always termed “God’s house”; and God’s people were under strict instructions to confine their sacrifices and offerings to this space.  They at times took this to mean that the temple was the only place on earth God could be found.  God dispels this notion through the Old Testament prophets, including Jeremiah who declares that God will be found by the exiles in Babylon (Jeremiah 29:10-14). 

That being said, the temple was always intended to be a monument to God’s presence, grace and glory.  This changed in 20 BC when Herod the Great, king of Judea, replaced the broken-down “second temple” the Israelites built after they returned from the exile.  Herod was a puppet king for the Romans.  He was a power- and fame-hungry politician who placated the seditious Jews by building them a brand-new temple.  Herod’s temple was one of the most impressive construction projects in the known world at the time.  And it was nothing if not a monument to Herod’s reign and achievement.  It was also a source of great pride for the Jews of Jesus’ day.

The temple was the center of religious life in Jerusalem; but it also became a hub of commercial activity.  Jews came from the known world to worship there.  Those coming from a distance purchased animals for sacrifice and religious artifacts and souvenirs.  A brisk business was also made by money changers.  The currency of the Roman Empire was considered unclean and therefore unfit to be offered in the temple.  Worshipers could exchange this for temple currency.  But there was a hitch: those who handled the Roman currency were also considered unclean.  The money-changing system in the temple by design forced some people to remain perpetually unclean for the sake of those who sought to enter the temple with pure hands. Those who benefitted from the money-changers' services maintained their own purity while reviling those who enabled them to stay clean.  

This is what Jesus barges into the day he cleanses the temple.  A place intended to be a monument to the glory of God. That has become instead a monument to human greed.  A place intended to be the gateway to God’s grace.  That has instead become an unjust barrier to those forever left on the margins.  Jesus’ rage is the rage of a protective parent; a jealous lover. 

In two of his letters the Apostle Paul declares:

“…your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20);

And,

“…I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” (Romans 12:1)

Jesus is Immanuel – “God with us”.  He replaces the temple building with the church – human beings in whom his own Spirit has take residence.  Countless God-meeting places spread around the world.   Temples of the Holy Spirit; living sacrifices; we become individual and collective monuments. 

As people claiming to be Christ's disciples and the new people of God, we have to ask ourselves: to whom/what are we monuments?  Our temptation, in a celebrity-making world, is to invest in our own reputations, careers, profiles and portfolios -- to be monuments to our own greatness and glory.  Jesus mourns over Jerusalem and the destruction that will befall its temple in AD 70.  That event stands as a stark declaration: any monument to anything other than God’s grace and glory will fall. 

Let your life be a monument.  Let it be not a fleeting monument to your greatness, but an eternal monument to God’s glory.