Today we are presented with a couple of readings that are of central importance to the entire biblical witness. First, we have the 10 Commandments, the summary and basis of God’s gracious will for his people and his law for them. Then we also have the story of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, a story that is found in all four gospels that is of central importance to the entirety of Jesus’ message and ministry.

First, a couple of comments regarding the story of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple: the main point of the story is not really so much a slam against commercialization in the temple, as it is usually thought to be, although it is this too. The problem is that is all that is usually said about it. Instead, I believe the principal point is that it is Jesus himself, through his own self-offering, who now proclaims himself to be the real object of Israel’s devotion, the new and living temple, if you will. One is reminded of the book of Hebrews where Jesus is depicted as simultaneously both the ultimate high priest and the supreme sacrifice, that whereas the temple high priest had to atone for his own sins as well as for the sins of all the people, and whereas he had to offer sacrifices repeatedly, day after day, on behalf of the people, Christ the final and true sinless high priest offers himself as the supreme sacrifice that is made only once and for all and which suffices for all time, who in this act of self-immolation takes his place at the right hand of God. Jesus, by a single offering, has perfected for all time those who are sanctified, according to the book of Hebrews [cf. Heb. 10:11ff.]. This is the real point of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, a point that is made exceptionally clear in John’s account of the event that we have before us today.

In John’s gospel Jesus seeks out the moneychangers, fashions a whip of cords, and then—and now listen carefully to the text—“he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.” The sheep and the cattle were traded in order to keep the temple sacrifices going. Jesus cleanses the temple, not just of the moneychangers, but of what the moneychangers make possible, namely, the old sacrificial cult. Tellingly, when Jesus is questioned about his actions, he replies, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The gospel writer explains: “he was speaking of the temple of his body.” Jesus’ body, you see, is the focal point of devotion and sacrifice, the meeting place of the God of Israel with his people, the true temple that makes the supreme sacrifice in whom, as Isaiah had prophesied, all the nations of the earth would find blessing. Jesus himself is the new temple. All that the temple signified for Israel, Jesus embodies in his own person. As the church confesses, he is the true sacrifice, i.e., the true paschal lamb, who took away the sins of the world. He is the place, as it were, where God dwells to be with his people.

It is both interesting and instructive that this gospel reading is paired with the Exodus story about the 10 Commandments. We should take note of Luther’s interpretation in which he highlighted the special significance and priority of the first commandment. Luther thought that the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God; you are to have no other gods,” was not only first in number, but also first in importance; for it is the commandment upon which all the other commandments depend and from which the other commandments flow. In his Large Catechism, Luther explains: “What does ‘to have a god’ mean, or what is God? Answer: A ‘god’ is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true one. Conversely, where your trust is false and wrong, there you do not have the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God. Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.”

It seems to me that this is exactly the point Jesus was making about the temple. The cleansing of the temple was one of Jesus’ greatest challenges to the religious sensibilities of Israel, and was thus a signal event in the course of Jesus’ ministry that got him into such trouble with the authorities. The gospels clearly portray Jesus as the true and proper object of Israel’s faith, the culmination (though not the conclusion) of Israel’s history with God, the definitive manifestation of the Holy One of Israel and King of the universe, the true paschal lamb that takes away the sins of the world, the unique self-offering and unrepeatable sacrifice, the place where the God of heaven and earth, and of Jews and gentiles, resides. It is on him and on him alone that our faith and our trust rests secure. Any other object of our faith and trust, even if that be the temple itself, is but an idol.

But then we do love our idols, don’t we. We become very attached to them. The most common idol on earth, according to Luther, is money and property. “Those who have money and property feel secure, happy, and fearless,” he said, “as if they were sitting in the midst of paradise.” “This desire for wealth,” Luther adds, “clings and sticks to our nature all the way to the grave.” Luther’s evaluation of the central importance we give to money and property is true of all of us and is so evident especially in times like these when money is in short supply and our ownership of property is threatened. In such times especially, it seems that the hunger for money and property, and our preoccupation with acquiring or preserving them, is all the more consuming.

Another idol, Luther claims, is our thirst for great learning, wisdom, power, prestige, family and honor. “Notice again,” Luther comments, “how presumptuous, secure, and proud people are when they have such possessions, and how despondent they are when they lack them or when they are taken away.” These are the things that create such pride of accomplishment in us, and it is for that very reason that the saying is true that pride that goes before the fall.

But the greatest false worship and idolatry involves the conscience “that seeks help, comfort, and salvation in its own works and presumes to wrest heaven from God.” With this form of idolatry even God himself can become an idol. God becomes an idol whenever we put ourselves in the place of God. We know what it means to find comfort in our own works, but I’m not so certain that we know what it means to wrest heaven from God; for it is perhaps the most insidious and subtle of all temptations. We are most vulnerable to this temptation whenever we think we are faithful, insightful, true, noble, righteous, pious and loyal. The self-righteousness that practically oozes from the churches on every side of the issues we face, from sexuality to Middle East policy, is palpable.

Both the 10 Commandments, which we often pass over, take for granted, or ignore on the one hand, and Jesus’ visible demonstration of his own authority in the cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem on the other, are distinct challenges that we examine our lives, and check our motives, priorities, loyalties, and place our complete confidence, trust and hope in the word and promise of the God of Israel. This will not be easy, because we are self-absorbed and self-consumed. For that reason, the word and promise of God is epitomized in the message about the cross, a message that as Paul says, “is stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

-Amen-