Jesus Was Angry: But Its All About The Greater Mission

March 12, 2021                       John 2: 15-24

12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days.

13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. ¹⁵Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ ¹⁷His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ ¹⁸The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ ¹⁹Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ ²⁰The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ ²¹But he was speaking of the temple of his body. ²²After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

23 When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. ²⁴But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people ²⁵and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.

            In Ephesians 4:26, Paul offers the practical guidance we need for managing anger.  “Be angry, but sin not.”  Now, being a human and fallible as all humans, and in line with a wise man who said that doing theology is at base autobiographical, I think Paul said this because of his own anger management issues.  But this reflection is not about Paul, it is about Jesus, and Jesus in the Gospel of John.

            Jesus was angry and Jesus was without sin.  Is that reflected in this story?  The temple was the marketplace.  There were animals for sacrifice that were on sale.  There were the money changers, who would swap currency for what was acceptable to the temple, on site.  And these were the people Jesus went after.  He made a cord of whips, drove ‘all of them’ out of the temple, not the people, but specifically the cattle and the sheep.  He dumped the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.  Does not say he ‘tanned their hides’, a metaphor for the spanking when I was growing up; there is no indication he beat on people.  So he made a mess and he made his point.

            Yet there were three kinds of animals for sale as sacrifices, cattle, sheep, and doves.  Now he took a cord of whips and drove out the cattle and the sheep, out of the Temple, not out of the City, not into the surrounding countryside.  He could easily have scattered the doves into the skies above, busting dove cotes, knocking over their pens.  But the Bible is very specific that he DID NOT.  Rather, he yells at the dove sellers, “Take these things out of here!”  He was angry but did not sin against the dove-sellers.

            Reaction to him is also quite specific.  He is not arrested for ‘disturbing the peace’ or ‘making a scene’.  Rather, the truth of his anger seems to be acknowledged.  “What sign can you show us for doing this?” they asked him.  It seems to me they knew what they were doing was wrong, so if Jesus can demonstrate the proper authority…

            Pay attention to Jesus’ response.  He does not claim the authority of being the Messiah, or God’s Son, or anyone of particular rank and privilege.  What can Jesus show them?  He says, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”  No, it is not the temple that the people took forty six years to build, it is the temple of Jesus’ own body.  Where does Jesus’ authority come from?  It comes from his death and resurrection.

            Between his anger and this discussion of authority, John inserts something the disciples, who are Jesus’ audience, whom he is teaching, he inserts a verse they will remember, from Psalm 69, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’  Jesus is living into the words that David wrote in this Psalm.  It is righteous zeal that sent him after the animal sellers and the money changers.  To read the extended section of Psalm 69 is to read about David who is convinced that he is cut off from everyone, the butt of everyone’s joke, because of his faithfulness to the Lord.

            What John gives us from this passage is not the ‘anger but do not sin’ trope that Paul indicated.  I think he assumes that.  Rather, it is the message of where Jesus’ authority comes from-for this and all parts of his ministry.  It is all about his death and resurrection.  And he set up the parts of his ministry not necessarily to explain that reality in the moment, but, as for this, when he was resurrected, then the disciples put it together and their faith was deepened even more.

            How about pulling something into focus?  Between Jesus’ death and resurrection, he opened the Scriptures-the Old Testament-and opened the minds of his disciples to understand that he, the Son of God, Son of Man, the Messiah, was indicated throughout.  What if this was the result of one of those lessons?  Jesus pointed to the time in the temple, drew upon Ps. 69, and opened their minds to yet another moment of connection.  David anticipated his descendent set to sit upon his throne.

            So, the preaching portion of this passage, in the lectionary, ends here.  But the close of the passage is the more logical conclusion.  We move into the Passover proper.  “Many believed in his name because of the signs that he was doing.”  For me, this is a divided meaning.  On the one hand, people had seen what he did to the animal sellers and the money changers. On the other hand, there is more that he was doing not recorded by John. 

            But Jesus ‘did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people.’  Jesus did not trust them because he knew them.  He did not set himself up as a leader of these people, did not ask them to follow him as he did to the disciples.  Neither did he need anyone to testify for him, because he himself knew what was in everybody.

            It is the extension of his power, of being God from the first verses of John 1 that are reflected here, he knew what was in everybody.  But there is a recurrence of his knowing what was in everybody, when he did not entrust himself to them and when he did not need their testimony.  That may feel rather obscure until we consider once again the center of his experience when expressing anger and violence in the temple.  It was all about the three days of the temple destroyed and rebuilt.

            There is the lead-in to another Passover where Jesus DOES entrust himself to the people.  We celebrate that moment on Palm Sunday.  It leads to his betrayal and death on the cross.  He does NOT need the testimony of the people in that stretch because his death and resurrection are the ultimate testimony of who he is and what he does.

            So where this passage causes issues is that this incident is recorded here, early in Jesus’ ministry, but recorded late in the other gospels-that it happened a lot later in Jesus’ ministry on the earth.  Why?  Until I have an answer that is faithfully fulfilling, I am going to live with the tension. 

Pastor Pete