Destroy this Temple

“Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days,...”:  A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent

Texts:  Exodus 20.1-17

            1 Cor. 1.18-25

            John 2.13-22

            + In the name of God:  Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

            A colleague of mine has told the story of a conversation she overheard in a jewelry shop.  A woman had come in looking for a cross and the sales assistant was trying very hard to be helpful.  She brought out all the plain crosses, both gold and silver.  And then she showed the woman shopper the more ornate crosses, again in both gold and silver.  As she pointed out some of the more notable of the ornate crosses, she came to one and said, “And this one has a little man on it!”  She obviously did not know who that “little man” was supposed to be!  And if she did not know that the “little man” was Jesus, then it follows she had no understanding what a cross is or, more to the point, what a cross was.  For that shop keeper it was just a decoration, a piece of jewelry, an item of merchandise.  

            When you understand what a cross is or, more to the point, what a cross was, you will appreciate just how incredible it is that in our day a cross has become a decoration and a common piece of jewelry.  Wearing a cross around your neck or on your lapel of your suit is akin to wearing the form of a gallows or figure of an electric chair.  Crucifixion was a means of execution, but a particular means of execution.  Many of you will have heard me speak about crucifixion before.  Common criminals, such as thieves, burglars or embezzlers were never crucified.  Rather crucifixion was reserved for violent criminals, for slaves and, in particular, for revolutionaries and rebels--from the perspective of Rome, for terrorists.  And a crucifixion was never a private affair.  On the contrary, Rome sought the most public of places for execution by crucifixion:  Amphitheaters, cross roads, on the top of a hill.  And lest other violent criminals or slaves or revolutionaries suspect Rome had gone soft, it was their intention to make a public example of their victims; and so the Romans did their best to make the experience as degrading and as humiliating as possible.  Thus, the victim was always suspended from the cross naked.  The loin clothes on our crucifixes and in Christian art are there out of sense of decorum and decency.  It is highly unlikely that Jesus would have been accorded any special treatment in this regard.  And so the accounts in the Gospels of the crowds jeering and taunting Jesus makes perfect sense.  Crucifixion, after all, was about humiliation and shame.

            And a statement of St. Paul in today’s New Testament lesson also makes perfect sense:  “But we proclaim the Messiah crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.”  Actually, the Greek word translated “stumbling-block” in our reading is the word σκάνδαλον (skandalon), from which we derive the English word “scandal.”  And the word rendered “foolishness” in our reading is a much stronger word that the translation “foolishness” would suggest.  If I may say so, the translation “foolishness” strikes me as an awfully polite, terribly English rendering.  An American, Canadian or Australian, who knew their Greek, would not have chosen “foolishness” for this word.  “Folly” or “madness” or “lunacy” comes closer to what must have been Paul’s intention.  The message of a crucified Messiah is scandalous to Jews and madness to Gentiles, but to those who trust in God it is a wisdom greater than any human wisdom, it is a wisdom most divine.

            A similar point is being made by the story which makes up today’s Gospel lesson.  Jesus enters the temple and begins re-ordering it about in a manner which only the Messiah would have had the authority to do.  In the first century, the Jerusalem temple was the heart of the Jewish nation, as well as the Jewish religion in a manner which we find very difficult to appreciate.  The temple represented both the religious and political centre of the Jews.  But its treasuries also served as the central bank of the nation.  Moreover, the temple was the one symbol which all Jews, no mattered where they lived, recognised as their symbol, their emblem.  In other words, you could say the temple of Jerusalem, in modern British terms, was the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the financial institutions of the City and Buckingham Palace all up rolled into one.  But there is more.  The temple was not just a building of national and religious, financial and symbolic significance.  It was, in addition, the place where heaven and earth met.  It was the place where humanity came to meet with God.  Now, just imagine if we had such a building in modern Britain, a structure which served as the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the financial institutions of the City and Buckingham Palace and the one place on earth where God was to be found all rolled into one and a popular preacher, who thought he was somebody, strolled into that building and began ordering people about and changing the way things were done in order to suit him--just imagine what the popular response would be!  The difference, however, is that in ancient Judaism there was an expectation that the day would come when this very thing would happen.  Many Jews held that the Messiah, when he came, one of his principal responsibilities would be to restore the temple to its proper purpose and function; that the Messiah would change for ever the temple of God.  [[At this point I added an extemporaneous note to the effect that it is often assumed that Jesus was angry with the buying and selling of sacrificial animals in the temple courts.  But, of course, the temple required sacrifices; they were commanded by God in the Jewish Law (read Exodus and Leviticus).  Jesus could not have taken exception to the presence of animals in the temple courts.  Rather, he was claiming this right as Messiah to bring the sacrifices commanded by God to an end.]]  Is it any wonder that after Jesus’ demonstration in the temple, the leading men of the nation confronted Jesus and demanded that he show them a sign to demonstrate that he had the authority to do what he was doing?  In other words, “If you are the Messiah, then prove it!”  And Jesus’ response was, shall we say, not exactly what one would have expected.  He responds by issuing a challenge:  “Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days.”  The amazed and confused Jewish leaders inform him that Herod’s rebuilding of the temple has been going on for forty-six years!  Does Jesus think he can repeat such a feat in three days?  But, of course, Jesus had been speaking about another kind of temple altogether.  He was the Messiah, but not as they expected.  To be sure, he possessed the right to re-order the temple as he saw fit, but his re-ordering was far more radical than anyone’s expectation.  In effect, he was claiming to be the new temple, the meeting place where God was to be found.  The building with its sacrifices was no longer required.

            And, of course, for those Jewish leaders that was impossible; it was scandalous.  How could this weak, vulnerable, defenseless man replace the temple with all its glory?  How could anyone find God or meet God in him?  The author tells us that not even his disciples understood at that time.  Only after that temple, the temple of his body, had been destroyed and had proved ultimately indestructible did they come to understand. 

            We also dare not misunderstand.  This man, this one man, was and is the meeting place between humanity and God precisely because he was weak and vulnerable and defenseless.  In this man God was pleased to become weak and vulnerable, to be mocked and insulted by the likes of you and me, in order to show you and me that God is love.  And love always requires that we become vulnerable and defenseless.  God’s love is infinitely greater than any human love, and so the demonstration of that love also had to be more vulnerable and defenseless than anything  you and I can imagine.  And so it was accomplished on a cross.  The message that God is love is scandalous; to a world that worships power and status and celebrity the message that God is weak and vulnerable love is madness.  But for those willing to believe, that is, to trust, to those willing to become vulnerable and love in return it is a wisdom greater than any human wisdom, it is a wisdom most divine. Amen.

Darrell Hannah