Divine House Cleaning

Read John 2

His disciples remembered that it is written:
“Zeal for your house will consume me.”
(John 2:17)

Thoughts… I have always enjoyed this story of Jesus cleansing the temple. I love the robust image it paints of our Lord. It stands in stark contrast to most of the historical paintings as well as the more recent images we get from the portrayal of Jesus by filmmakers. For some reason, artists from the Renaissance on up to this very day have given us a feminized Jesus—soft, tender, doe-eyed, almost porcelain-like.

That is not the Jesus of John 2:13-16,

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!”

Jesus doesn’t appear all that soft in this encounter, does he? As a matter of fact, he opened up a can of comeuppance on these merchants of religion, and no one dared stop him. Go down to your local Saturday Market and do that, and see what happens. People typically don’t take too kindly to having their economic systems so abruptly disrupted.

Jesus was different. He was right—and people knew it. His anger was one of righteous indignation and holy zeal for the House of the Lord. This kind of house cleaning was long overdue, and if they didn’t overtly cheer him on, inside the worshippers were secretly applauding.

Now as much as we enjoy this story, it truly is incomplete if we don’t fast-forward to our time and ask how Jesus would respond if he walked into our church today. How much more zeal would Jesus have for his body, the temple of the Holy Spirit—that is, the church? How much more holy fire and righteous indignation would he display for that which he suffered and died to redeem?

You see, in the new economy of the Kingdom of God, the church has replaced the temple as the dwelling place of God in the earth. Of course, that refers more to a people than a place—and yet both are the church, God’s holy temple. What would Jesus see in your church—in you, in your brothers and sisters in the local community of Christ, and in the activities that take place in your church building?

I have a sense that each of us, both people of worship and places of worship—are due for a little divine house cleaning. How about we get started before the Lord of the church has to show up and do it for us!

Prayer… Lord, fill my belly with zeal for your house. Let it consume me as it did you. Zeal not only for the physical house in which your people gather, but also in this house made up of body, soul and spirit, in which your Spirit dwells.

One More Thing… “Learn to break your own will. Be zealous against yourself.” — Thomas A` Kempis