Is it Time for the Whip?

Text:  John 2:13-22

Theme:  “Is it Time for the Whip?”

The Third Sunday in Lent

March 8, 2015

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[a]

18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

We’re right around the halfway point in the season of Lent.  One traditional aspect of this 40 day period that we have lost, for the most part, is its focus on teaching the faith.  You’re not born with faith in Jesus Christ; it must be taught. It used to be that Lent was the prime time for newcomers to Christianity – inquirers or seekers, you might say – to avail themselves of Christian teaching.  They took what we might call a “course” in, again, what we might call “Christianity 101”.  It was a process of teaching called “catechesis”.  Then, as the Spirit of God so led, they were given the opportunity to profess their faith publicly and be baptized at the end of the season.  Holy Saturday, or “Easter Eve”, was the occasion when the period of instruction concluded with the baptism of the catechumens. 

When I began public ministry in 1987, I taught a 16 week course to share the tenets of our faith with inquirers.  But that was nearly 30 years ago.  Since then our attention spans have been so obliterated that it’s difficult, these days, to sustain interest for 16 minutes much the less 16 weeks!

Nevertheless, we can be glad we have the basics here this morning.  We have classic Scriptural treatments of the two main teachings of Christian faith:  the law and the Gospel.  Of all the types of law in the Bible, the moral law is tops – and you got that read into you in today’s Old Testament Reading with its presentation of the Ten Commandments.  Your New Testament Reading from 1 Corinthians chapter one, presents to you the message of the cross of Christ, or, in other words, the Gospel.  So there you have it in your hearing:   Law and Gospel.  The reading from the Psalms is handy because it – lyrically, musically, prayerfully, worshipfully! – interprets the main teachings of the Law and the Gospel.

The law makes demands upon people.  The gospel gives life to people.  The law threatens; the gospel makes promises. The law is bad news; it shows us our sin.  The gospel is good news; it shows us our Savior.  The law is the way of coercion; the gospel is the way of gift – of faith, of hope, of suffering love.

In today’s text from the gospel of John (“gospel” is also the word which describes the first four books in the New Testament, by the way), it looks as though neither the Law of God or the Gospel of God are getting a hearing at all. 

What is happening is a lot of profit taking.  The scene is set in the temple courtyard in Jerusalem.  Cattle, sheep, and doves are being sold, and these commodities were what were needed then for the faithful to make their required sacrifices.  If it were all about the Law of God for you, then you had to make them.  The sellers knew this, so why not rake in the dough right at the place where the faithful were coming to worship and pay their sacrifices?  You could even exchange what money you had for the proper temple currency to buy a cow, a sheep, or a dove.  Of course, the money-changers will take their cut as well.

Like retail establishments at Christmastime, the best time for the making of profit was right before a big holiday.  In Jesus’ day, that was Passover.  So, with Passover close at hand, we see Jesus enter in to this hustling, bustling milieu filled with frantic buyers and frantic sellers all amid the din of cows mooing, doves cooing, and sheep going “baaaah”.  Knowing what you do about Jesus, picture Him taking in the scene.  Of course, all of this busy-ness was going on for the most noble of motives:  that people might practice their religion. 

What does our Lord do?

There’s nothing about him sitting back in the owner’s suite, like Chris Christie at Jerry Jones’ Cowboys stadium, firing up a Cuban cigar to enjoy while observing the proceedings.   No.  It says “He made a whip out of cords.”

How do you do that?

Later on this afternoon, go to www.themanscave.com and click on the link for “8ft paracord bullwhip (timelapse)”.  You’ll see.  If we held an adult vacation Bible school, we could do it.  But we’d some supplies chipped in.  We’dneed some para-cord and a scissors to cut it into three pieces of varying lengths.  In addition, it would help to have some cooking oil, electrical tape, a sharp scissors, and some BBs.  It wouldn’t hurt to have a couple of clamps to hold things in place.  I have NO IDEA how to make such a whip.  But, as I watched how it was done, I realized that it still takes time and patience for it to be made – even by those who know what they are doing.

Notice again:  it doesn’t say Jesus just grabbed a whip.  He made one.

Pretty clearly, Jesus didn’t make the whip of cords so people could go:  “Oh, look!  What a fine craftsman you are!”

He took that whip there on the scene and went into something of a zealous frenzy.  He literally cleared that temple court with the whip He made – all people, all cows, all sheep, all doves, all money flying every which way.  He went wild.  In our day, if Jesus did the whip thing He’d be arrested on one or more of any number of charges. 

“Stop turning my Father’s house into an emporium,” He cried.  Was it civil disobedience?  You make the call.

We are – or, at least, we claim to be – the followers of Jesus, His modern-day disciples.  What did His first disciples do when they saw this?  They actually didn’t do a thing, but they did remember something.  They remembered Psalm 69:9.  “For zeal for your house has consumed me.  And the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen of me.”

We are coming to that time in the Christian year when we, too, will remember.  We’ll remember when the whip was not in the hand of Jesus.  But it was in the hands of those who reproached Him,  beat Him, scourged Him, killed Him.  Jesus had overturned their religion – like so many money-changing tables.  In order to save God’s honor and keep the peace, it would be better for one man to die for the people than for the whole nation to suffer.

Thus, for the most noble of motives, the plot to kill Jesus began.

The question that I’m wrestling with is this:  What is it about religion today that would cause Jesus to make a whip?  Closer to home, what is it about our religious practices that Jesus would roust out?

As I ponder this (and I’m still not altogether sure of the answers), I do remember what I was taught, and that is this:  they destroyed the temple of His body.  But God raised that temple back in three days.  That destruction was Good Friday.  That raising again was Easter Sunday.

These stories, you will recall, are not in the realm of the Law.  We can be glad that they are in the realm of the Gospel.  They tell us not what we are to do, but what has been done for us.  Lent is a good time – a prime time! – to study these things, remember these things – even as the disciples did.  In the meantime, if you’re so inclined, you might try your hand at making a whip of cords.  When asked about it, you've got quite a story to tell!

Amen.