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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
We here at Pilgrim have the congregation’s annual work day coming up in a couple of weeks. Volunteers come to do yard and other work outside on our property and also to clean the inside of the buildings. Remodeling or construction or not at the point, there is certainly work to be done, although admittedly none of what needs to be done outside or cleaned inside is really keeping the congregation from being about its purpose of distributing the forgiveness of sins that Jesus won for all people on the cross (but do not let that fact keep any of you from coming to work that day). The situation is different in the Gospel Reading appointed for today, the Third Sunday in Lent. In that Reading, which tells of Jesus’s so‑called “cleansing” of the Temple, although no “cleansing” terminology is used, Jesus drives out of the Court of the Gentiles all those who were getting in the way of what was supposed to be going on there. Jesus’s action was perfectly in keeping with His zeal for His Father’s House, and this morning, as we reflect on the Gospel Reading, we do so under the theme “Zeal for God’s House”. (You might note that today’s Introit first set the “tone” or “theme” of that “zeal”, quoting, as the Gospel Reading does, Psalm 69.)
For today’s and next week’s Gospel Readings we have moved over to St. John’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account, which narrates a cleansing of the Temple by Jesus apparently near the beginning of His ministry, with unique details and more details than the other Gospel accounts’ narrations of a cleansing of the Temple apparently near the end of His ministry. Right after describing the work of John the Baptizer in chapter 1, St. John’s account in chapter 2 tells of the Lord coming to His Temple to refine and clean and purify (see Malachi 3:1-4). St. John’s account seems to emphasize where the ones selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and the ones changing money were, not that they were selling sacrificial animals or facilitating offerings of money or even that they were likely making money in the process. For, God Himself through Moses had given His people directions for such transactions (Deuteronomy 14:24-26), although He surely did not intend for them to interfere with the worship of those from outside His people of Israel. As St. John tells of this cleansing, Jesus seems to refer to prophecy God spoke through Zechariah (14:21) against merchants being in His house, against their making it a “house of trade” (we get our English word “emporium” from the Greek word St. John records on Jesus’s lips). To the extent that the other Gospel accounts have Jesus’s quoting prophecy God spoke through Isaiah (56:7) and Jeremiah (7:11) against the merchants’ turning God’s House called by His Name from a “House of Prayer” into a “den of thieves”, the merchants arguably were both robbing the non‑Jewish Gentile nations of their place of worship and robbing God Himself of their worship (Bruce, New Testament History, 189-190). In our time, storefront churches may be one thing, and coffee shops in Narthexes may be another thing, but what Jesus is dealing with might be likened to having an A‑T‑M standing right here where the Baptismal Font is, in the center of the Nave or Sanctuary. Jesus’s “Zeal for God’s House” lead Him, having made a whip of cords, arguably violently but righteously to drive out of the Court of the Gentiles those selling oxen and sheep and pigeons and those changing money, pouring out their coins and overturning their tables.
To be sure, no one is selling oxen and sheep and pigeons or changing money in the holy precincts here at Pilgrim. Yet, other things can get in the way of what is supposed to be going on here. Some of those things might rob people inside or outside of the congregation of their place of worship, and some of those things might rob God Himself of their worship. We heard in today’s Old Testament Reading (Exodus 20:1-17) God’s so‑called “Ten Commandments”, with the First Commandment to have no other gods before Him: not a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. We are not to bow down to them or serve them, for the Lord our God is a jealous God. The Lord our God is not “jealous” in a bad way but “jealous” in a good way, with “a righteous desire for His people faithful” (TLSB, ad loc Exodus 20:5, 128). No doubt the Holy Spirit used the reading of the Ten Commandments this morning to show us how we fail to be faithful, to have no other gods before the Lord our God. If we were so faithful, we would not break any of the other nine Commandments, but, as it is, we are unfaithful and sin in so many ways. For example, where God the Father is jealous for us, and Jesus was zealous for God’s House (maintaining His honor and doing His will), we too often show disrespect and disregard for God’s Word in all its forms (think of preaching, Baptism, individual Absolution, and Communion), in some cases we even suggest that we despise them by our not using them as we should. For those and all our sins we deserve nothing but both the punishment of death here in time and the torment of hell for eternity.
As St. John tells of this cleansing, the leaders of the Jews asked Jesus what sign He was showing them essentially for the authority to drive out of the Temple’s Court of the Gentiles those selling sacrificial animals and facilitating offerings of money (NIV, NASB, NEB). Jesus, Who, in referring to His Father’s house, had already claimed to be the Son of God, then claimed for Himself divine power, by saying that, if they would destroy the temple of His body, He would raise it up in three days. The leaders of the Jews at least responded as if they in this case thought Jesus was talking about the temple buildings, but no less divine power would be needed for that. Jesus’s “Zeal for God’s House” truly consumed Him, leading to His death, as the reproaches (or contempt) of those who reproached (or scorned) God fell on Him (Psalm 69:9, as in the Introit). Jesus’s prophecy of His death and resurrection was garbled or twisted as the Jewish leaders put Him on trial and sentenced Him to death (e.g., Matthew 26:61) and similarly used to mock Him as He hung on the cross (e.g., Matthew 27:40). Sentenced to death, Jesus, Who had made a whip of cords was whipped (Mark 15:15) and as true man died on the cross for us, bodily raising Himself three days later, as He had prophesied. Jesus was (and is) greater than the Temple (Matthew 12:6) and Solomon, the son of David, who built the first one (Matthew 12:42; Luke 11:31). Our Great High Priest sacrificed not oxen or sheep or pigeons but Himself, as the true Passover Lamb of God, for us and for our salvation. As St. Paul wrote in today’s Epistle Reading (1 Corinthians 1:18-31), God made Christ Jesus our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. When we repent of our sin and believe in Jesus—when we trust that He died for us as individuals, for our sins—then God truly forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake. The sign of His death and resurrection results for us, as it eventually did for Jesus’s disciples, in faith in Him and so also faith both in the Word that Jesus has spoken and in the rest of the Holy Scriptures, of which He also ultimately is the author.
Christ and all of Holy Scripture’s unified Word of the cross are the power of God to those who are called and are being saved, as St. Paul emphasizes in today’s Epistle Reading. St. Paul also could be zealous for believers (2 Corinthians 11:2), and he and his successors in the Office of the Holy Ministry freely preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments, creating and nourishing faith and giving us the forgiveness of sins. The Introit’s mention of “deep waters” and “the flood” (Psalm 69:14-15) remind us of Holy Baptism and its water and the Word that rescues us from death and the devil. Jesus’s driving (or casting) out of the Temple Courts reminds us of excommunication and individual absolution, the binding and loosing of the Office of the Keys following private confession (confer John 6:37; 9:34‑35; 12:31). And, Jesus’s speaking of the Temple of His body at Passover time, after earlier in the same chapter of St. John’s account turning water into wine as a sign that revealed His glory and created faith (John 2:1-11; confer Brown, ad loc Jn 2:13-22, 125), remind us of the Sacrament of the Altar, where bread and wine are, as it were, the Temple for His body and blood, coming into us and so giving us life and salvation. Here, at this Altar and its Rail, we and our households, like the people of Israel who traveled a long distance and bought their sacrifices, eat in the presence of the Lord our God and rejoice (Deuteronomy 14:26). As we will sing in the Distribution Hymn, in one of my favorite hymn stanzas, there is no higher gift that we can inherit than the highest good of the Lord’s body and blood; they are faith’s bond and solid base, the strength of heart and spirit, the covenant of hope and grace (Lutheran Service Book 618:5). His Word and these Sacraments are the signs He gives today for creating and nourishing faith and for giving us the forgiveness of sins.
In the last week or so, those listening to the news have heard a great deal about the United States’ nuclear negotiations with Iran and the threat Iran poses to the modern nation of Israel. Even as those negotiations run out of time, we are properly mindful of any threat to any people, not as if the modern nation of Israel (or even our own country) has any special status from God’s perspective. God’s House is no longer there, and it will never be there again. Now, God’s glory dwells in the God-man Jesus Christ and so also in us. Whether ethnically Jewish or Gentile, all of us His people who believe are God’s temple and house (1 Corinthians 3:16‑17; 6:19; Ephesians 2:19‑22; confer Hebrews 3:6; 1 Peter 4:17; 1 Timothy 3:15). We also have “Zeal for God’s House”, and, when we fail to have such zeal or when we sin in any other way, we, with repentance and faith, live every day in the forgiveness of sins, at peace with God and with one another. We come, as we are able, in a couple of weeks for Pilgrim’s work day, but, whether or not we do, we have here a place to receive God’s forgiveness and thereby to worship Him. As we did in the Hymn of the Day, called “the first Protestant hymn with a mission thrust” (Precht, #288, 305), we pray to God:
Thine overall shall be the praise / And thanks of ev’ry nation;
And all the world with joy shall raise / The voice of exultation.
For Thou shalt judge the earth, O Lord, / Nor suffer sin to flourish;
Thy people’s pasture is Thy Word / Their souls to feed and flourish,
In righteousness to keep them. (LSB 823:2)
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +