Cleaning House

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. (John 2:13-14)

I have generally viewed this reference to the Passover as simply a side note in this story to indicate the time of year and the holiday that gave Jesus reason to go to Jerusalem at this time. And I'm sure that this is a major part of the reason this was recorded here, but not all of the reason. As with a lot of details overlooked in the Bible, I believe there may be much more packed into these few words that will expand and deepen for those who are willing to meditate and listen to what the Spirit has to say about it.

What I am starting to see in these verses is a stark contrast presented. And I suspect that if I was a good Jew that contrast would very likely be even more intense because of a much deeper understanding and appreciation for the meaning and power in the story of the original Passover. That holiday feast and the ceremonies and stories that centered around it were one of the most potent defining events in the psyche of any good Jew who knew about his heritage. It was basically viewed by most Jews as the time when their very existence as a nation or large group of people became clear as a viable presence in the world.

The first Passover occurred at the center of a whole series of earth-shaking events that starkly defined the Israelites as a people specially chosen of God to be His representatives to the world. It was the day when, through most amazing and mind-blowing miracles, God freed these people from abject slavery, abuse and ignorance out of the hands of a most ruthless, cruel and uncaring system that had depended on force and fear for many years to keep them in bondage. They were thus launched into the freedom and protection and loving care of a God that they had never dreamed might even exist in such a way. In just a few short weeks these people experienced a whirlwind of events and traumas that catapulted them from feeling totally worthless and abandoned to being the center of attention not only of the whole world but were considered the object of supreme affection by the most powerful being of the universe.

God conducted events in such a way through this mighty act of deliverance that there could never be any serious doubts by reasonable people about the nature of the Source that released them to freedom. God did not come and assist the Israelites or help them to deliver themselves. He allowed no room for confusion as to whose power it was that had freed them from bondage. It was absolutely clear to them forever that their previous condition was completely beyond their ability to solve and on top of that, when the miracles displayed by Moses and Aaron began things had even gotten worse for them.

This act of delivering a helpless group of millions of people from ruin and despair and severe abuse in such a short time and in such a remarkable way became the touchstone of identity for these people for all generations to come. Even today thousands of years later that series of events is still one of the most defining stories cherished by all Jews who value their identity and heritage. And God intended it to be exactly that way for them.

But God intended it to be far more than just a means of helping Jews remember who they were as a special people chosen by God. He originally chose them to become His representatives to the whole world with the plan of having them reveal His goodness and His ways to attract all other people's to want to come and serve Him through appreciation and love. But the Jews instead turned inward and through selfishness, pride and fear became some of the greatest examples of apostasy and legalism that this world has ever seen. Because they failed to embrace the real truths about God embedded in these events that helped to shape their identity, they ended up eventually rejecting the very One who had so graciously chosen them and delivered them and given them everything that made them who they were.

Repeatedly throughout the Bible this event is brought up again and again to remind God's people everywhere of what God is really like. This event was intended to be a constant reminder of God's immense compassion, His ability to easily overcome any difficulties no matter how hopeless they may appear humanly speaking, and to reveal His goodness and all the various aspects of His character to a world filled with lies and distortions about His real attitude and feelings toward mankind. This event was specifically given, and the feast holiday in its commemoration was supposed to keep people aware of their continued need for complete dependence on the God who had so manifestly displayed His kindness, love and great power to draw a people out of fear and bitterness into a relationship of intimacy, love and trust with Himself.

When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the LORD your God and listen to His voice. For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them. Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived? Or has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown that you might know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him. (Deuteronomy 4:30-35)

The purpose of the Passover was to keep fresh in their minds the true identity of the God who loved them and the obligations and privileges of the covenant that they shared with this God as the descendants of those He had delivered from Egyptian slavery. The Passover was one of the most important focal points of the Jewish calendar designed to refresh in their hearts the reminders of His care and love, and so they would appreciate their God and would deepen their connection to His heart.

But instead the very opposite had become a reality by the time Jesus arrived on the scene. Instead of celebrating the goodness of God and remembering their intended identity as representatives to the world of a compassionate, caring Father in heaven, the Jews had turned this holiday event into another opportunity for enriching themselves through crass commercialism and exploitation. Even worse than that, they had chosen to do much of this right in the temple courts that was supposed to be the chosen spot on earth where God wanted to reveal the real truth about Himself to the world through His chosen people.

So what Jesus saw to His great dismay when He arrived in Jerusalem at the beginning of His ministry was a system of religion and a group of people who had wholly given themselves over to the deceptions of the enemy of God. They were now exploiting others in such a way as to profane the very reputation of the God they claimed was their Father. Instead of celebrating the compassion and goodness of God in their deliverance from slavery in the past by reflecting that same spirit in the present, they were conducting themselves in a way more reminiscent of the spirit by which the Egyptians had treated them instead of the way God had treated them. They were robbing the poor, taking advantage of the strangers, crowding out the weak and the gentiles and causing all around them to be repulsed by a religion that had gone so sour that no one could see much reason to want to come to this God and be saved.

This is at least part of what Jesus found when He showed up at the temple that day. This was part of what must have stirred His emotions and aroused His intense jealousy for what was happening to the reputation of His loving Father who had sent Him to correct this terrible picture of God that His people were presenting to the world. This tragic misrepresentation of what God was like had become condensed even more in the leaders of the very people whom God had chosen years before to do just the opposite. And it was because of this spectacular failure to carry out their original purpose of exposing the real truth about their God to the world that God sent His own Son to pick up the fallen banner and re-establish a beachhead of truth in the land of the enemy.

In reality, this temple itself was the house of Jesus on this earth. Jesus Himself was God and the temple professedly was dedicated to and belonged to God. So if the Jews had had any perception of reality at all about them, had been in their right mind or had allowed their hearts to listen to the Holy Spirit through the many prophesies given to their forefathers, they would have realized that Jesus was simply there to physically move into His own house.

Given this context, why should it surprise anyone in the slightest that Jesus would act like a normal homeowner in His own house? If you came home one day to find that a bunch of squatters had taken up housekeeping on your front porch or in your living room and were partying and acting wild and stupid and even threatening you as you approached, wouldn't you feel like doing something rather obvious to let them know that this was no place for them to carry on as they were? It would only make sense for you to inform them that this was the wrong place to act as they were doing, especially if you discovered that they were abusing your own children right there in your house. You would most likely have some very strong emotions about insisting that they must leave the premises and must do it immediately.

I have actually never even seen it that clear myself before. Now that I think about this as simply Jesus coming home to His own house and finding it a big mess, it makes so much more sense that He would want to launch into some major housekeeping so that He could then entertain friends and visitors in His own place. Of course that never worked out very well because the intruders did not stay away very long. They were living under the illusion that He was not really the homeowner and they mistakenly believed as so many do yet today, that might makes right. So because they were in the majority from their perspective, they refused to acknowledge His rightful position as the true homeowner and eventually ended up killing Him because He claimed to be the very person they had been waiting for for generations – their Messiah.

Father, it is so easy to see the mistakes of people in the past. But it is just as easy to make similar mistakes in our own blindness today because of our terribly mistaken assumptions about who You really are even now. We are so much like the Jews who forgot the real meaning of the Passover and became clueless about Your true identity, all because of their unbelief and selfishness. We are no different than they were except we have our own unique ways of being deceived about You.

Please show us the real truth about Yourself more clearly and sweep away the dark clouds of lies that keep us so confused about Your real feelings towards us. Show us Your heart of passionate love and grace and tenderness, but if need be do it in ways so obvious that we can't miss it. I realize that there are times when you have to pick up a whip to get our attention so we can finally become aware of how much we are misrepresenting You. I give you permission to come into Your own house right now and start cleaning it up so You can move in and feel comfortable here. Come clean house in my church and in my own heart and move in Your furniture and fixtures so that this can become a place where You can feel at home and invite others in to enjoy Your company.