John 2:13-22
Giotto, Explusion of Money Changers 1306
Normally, the animal markets & the exchange agents set up their tables outside the Temple precincts. Whatever the reason for the change, it resulted in allowing rival competing merchants to set up their animal stalls & money changers to set up their exchange tables in the Temple confines.
Now, guess where in the Temple all of this took place? Right there in the Court of the Gentiles-in the only place where those who were defined as needing God the most had that chance taken away. The Gentiles were displaced by pigeons. And Jesus becomes infuriated.
Nowhere else in all of the New Testament do we meet Jesus quite on these terms. His outburst in the Temple seems to be out of character. Through our image of a Jesus meek and mild, a tender, soft-spoken Galilean, comes this specter of wrath and rebuke, anger and indignation.
For the evangelist John, Jesus not only momentarily shakes up the Temple practices, Jesus does away with the whole sacrificial system. It’s not merely misguided, it’s bankrupt.
No longer do we need to sacrifice those on the outside, replacing people with pigeons, because they just might not be pure enough – or look, think and dress like us. With Jesus, there’s another way.
No longer do we need to sacrifice one another in order to find a scapegoat to blame. So that we come off unblemished with clean hands and purged consciences. With Jesus, there’s another way.
The Temple with its sacrificial system has been destroyed. A permanent sacrifice has been made for us and for our salvation upon Calvary’s cross, and on the third day a new temple was raised. He is, as John the Baptist testified, “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world”.
