3rd Sunday in Lent “Disruptive Jesus”
March 3, 2024 John 2:13-22
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Dear brothers & sisters in Christ,
To ‘disrupt’ is to cause a disorder of the normal order; to interrupt the usual course of things; to cause an upheaval, to up-set what is set, to mess-up what is neat. Life is full of disruptions, and we almost always view them as ‘bad’, frustrating, connected to sin, or from being in a fallen world. Most of them are.
Inclement weather often disrupts our travel plans. A study published in Business Insider found that, each year, about 60,000 flights get canceled because of bad weather, which costs the airline industry about 3 billion dollars. Minnesotans tend to think in terms of cold & snow as disruptive; but other parts of the country contend with hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, & earthquakes = those disrupt the normal order of daily life.
Besides that, protesters disrupt meetings, & activists shut down busy highways. Children can be disruptive in school. A sick pet, or a sick car, can overturn the home schedule. And maybe our weather-app warns us ahead of time that snow is coming so we are not so disrupted; but no one has yet developed a ‘health-app’ to warn us ahead of time when our bad back, or the flu, or other illness will suddenly disrupt our daily routine, or overturn our future plans.
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In our Gospel for today, we observe Jesus being disruptive; sin is involved, but not His. Altho disruptive, His actions are a fulfillment of prophesy as the Messiah, and a correct & proper reaction of God to sin. We know that 1Cor.14 says God is a God of peace & not of chaos. But on that day, Jesus brings chaos & disorder into the temple. Jesus interrupts the normal order of things with upheaval. Not only did the people back then not like it, there are people who read of this now and don’t like it either. They don’t like this ‘disruptive Jesus.’
Another version of the Bible uses a little different language for what happened that day. It sounds like this: 13-14 When the Passover Feast, celebrated each spring by the Jews, was about to take place, Jesus traveled up to Jerusalem. He found the Temple teeming with people selling cattle and sheep and doves. The loan sharks were also there in full strength.
15-17 Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather, and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants, “Get your things out of here!
Stop turning my Father’s house into a shopping mall!” That’s when it dawned on his disciples that the Scripture says, “Zeal for your house consumes me.”
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What should we think when we see this different side of Jesus? Here, He is not a sweet little babe wrapped in swaddling cloths lying in a manger; or an inquisitive young boy in the temple asking theological questions. He is not the quiet guest at a wedding who, casually turns water into wine for a celebration. He’s not the wise Rabbi on the hillside encouraging the meek with the kingdom of God, & He’s not taking the children in His arms to bless them.
Here, He is not filled with compassion for the 5,000 who followed him all day & were hungry for bread & fish; & here He is not weeping with Mary & Martha in front of the tomb of Lazarus before He commands the dead man to ‘come forth.’ No, today we see a stern Jesus who is all business, making a whip of cords, rousting animals to go running every-which-way, yelling at the money-changers to leave, flipping their tables & flinging their coins all over the place. Jesus makes a mess!
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Maybe you & I don’t like this disruptive Jesus either. This isn’t the Jesus we bring up first when we want tell others that they have a kind Savior & Lord. Just like we don’t begin with Jesus’ teaching when He tells us that if we cause a little one to sin, we’d be better off with a millstone tied around our neck & be dropped into the sea = we don’t like to bring up that Jesus.
We prefer the one who is the shepherd that goes after that lost sheep. We like the gentle, soft-spoken Jesus, who calmly confronts sinners while outwitting his enemies. But that is not who we see today. This is ‘Intolerant Jesus’, who will not tolerate this sinful disrespect God’s holy house & things. Sometimes even we forget that He is the great ‘I Am,’ the holy God, in the flesh. He is also fully human. So, is this a moment of human weakness? Was this a misstep that He lost His cool & flew off the handle? What about His command to love your neighbor as yourself? What about the Jesus that welcomes sinners & eats with them = these sinners get no welcome. Aren’t we supposed to love our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us?
Yes, His commands to love, to welcome, & to pray for are still true. But there is more to truth than just those; truth covers both Law and Gospel. God’s truth can be comforting, & peace-giving, patient & tolerant. But God’s truth can also be confronting, face-slapping,
like cold water dumped on the head, & like running into a brick wall; even we are known to say, ‘the truth hurts.’
The problem is not with God’s truth, but with us. The problem is not that there is more than one Jesus, the problem is that our lives are divided, & we struggle fully know God.
Our old nature & sin needs to be confronted, and our new creation in faith needs to be encouraged. And there is just One who was sent to do both = Jesus. In cleansing the temple that day, the Son of God is being both holy and loving, both strict teacher and caring friend.
We are confident in what the Scripture proclaims: that the sin Jesus took to the cross was ours, & not His. He was tempted in every way, as we are, but remained without sin. So, even tho we see Him here angry & causing upheaval, He is still our perfect, loving Savior. And we will be careful not to limit Jesus with our favorite, narrow view.
Our Jesus is disruptive; but who is He disrupting? Heaven’s Savior loves His enemies enough to disrupt them from their disobedient, disrespectful ways. He knows us humans; that our sins are not good for us, and that the wages of sin is eternal death. You & I can get caught up in disobedience & disrespect for God & His things. And because Jesus loves us, we can expect that He will disrupt those sinful things in our lives, holding us accountable for our sins. He does that so that we will see it, & be turned away from sin so that we would receive His forgiveness.
Disruptive Jesus loves us enough to upset our sinful lives so that we will see it’s spiritual chaos & danger, and follow after Him in a holy, new life. That’s ultimately what He wanted to do for the money-changers & pigeon-sellers in the temple. He certainly had the authority to curse them on the spot for sinning against the House of The Lord.
Just like in Matt.21, when He was hungry, passing by a fig tree, looked for figs & saw none. He cursed that tree, & immediately it withered & died. While Jesus’ actions in the temple were disruptive, He wasn’t merely losing His cool; He was actually holding back = staying cool enough to seek to save them from eternal damnation.
This is the disruptive authority of God’s Word for His people. Parents can cause this upheaval in their children’s lives when the children are disobedient; scolding & punishment should have the goal of discipline, and restoring order, obedience & peace. This authority to interrupt people’s delinquent & errant lives is given to the Church. Whether this disruption comes from a fellow brother or sister, from a leader or elder, or from the pastor, it is meant for the good of their soul in repentance & forgiveness & guidance.
The Law is part of God’s Word for our ultimate good; Jesus fulfilled it in our place under judgment, but it still stands to confront us, correct us, & guide us in our new holy living in Christ. That Law confronts our sin; in this life, sin still threatens to disqualify us from God’s kingdom. It would’ve been easier for Jesus to say & do nothing, and simply let all sinners go to hell. But out of loving mercy, He says what is needed, and He does everything needed to turn our hearts & minds back to Him as He is leading us into His kingdom.
To those who questioned Him, Jesus gives them a memorable Gospel message so that in hearing it they might believe. He says, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ ” But He was not speaking of the physical building made with stones.
No, He is referring to the temple of His body, and to His crucifixion & resurrection.
It was rather easy to yell, & swing around a whip, & tip over some tables. It was not easy for Jesus to stay silent, be arrested & condemned, to trudge to the cross, bleed & die, and then roll that tombstone away in 3 days so that sinners would be saved. He comes into the world, and disrupts all things that would keep you & me from the loving arms of His heavenly Father. It’s in the Father’s House that all this bad news & good news is proclaimed so that it may be believed, and souls would live eternally. To turn that House into a marketplace was a deadly distraction. So, out of love for them, & for us, in comes Disruptive Jesus.
Overturning tables and disrupting life is how our loving & authoritative Lord works. Jesus will disrupt our distracting everyday life to call us out on our sins. He commands us to stop listening to our own wayward reason, and the lies of the world, and live according to His teaching. Jesus used the waters of Holy Baptism to interrupt the inborn direction of sin’s hold on us, and gives us a new birth as God’s own child.
Jesus also prepares for us a special Meal. But we are warned in 1Cor.11 that before we participate in the bread =that is His body to eat, and in the wine =that is His blood of forgiveness for us to drink, we must examine ourselves; or check our tables. There are always some that need to be overturned. He loves us enough to disrupt us so that nothing will hinder Him from nourishing our faith & trust in God.
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‘Disruptive Jesus’ may never be our most favorite view of Him, but it certainly is part of who He is; and it is for our good. And we can trust Him. Jesus knows what things He needs to drive out of our heart & mind; He knows what sinful tables there are in our lives that need overturning. He can see the things we bring into our life that interfere with being in the Father’s House, and receiving the Father’s good gifts.
The ‘cleansing of the temple’ reminds us that ‘Disruptive Jesus’ is not mean, or out of control. He is the great ‘I Am’, the holy God, and our loving Savior = all in One.
He loves us enough to clear the way for us to come into the Father’s House forevermore.
Amen.