The Third Sunday of Lent
March 11, 2012 - Pastor Adam Moline
March 11, 2012 - Pastor Adam Moline
Exodus 20:1-17 1
Corinthians 1:18-31 John 2:13-25
This weeks sermon written was extremely different than sermon preached - just was in the preaching mood I guess, but here is the written sermon:
Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today comes from the Gospel lesson just read, especially these
words, 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Thus far our text.
Dear friends in
Christ. The Jewish temple was the place
forgiveness of sins happened, because that is the place where God dwelt. There, animals were slaughtered. There, blood was spilled – gallons of it. There the priests daily offered countless
sacrifices, burning them on a giant altar.
It was a huge 34 acre complex, covered with gold and jewels and a vast
market place. In that market place,
animals that were to be sacrificed were bought and sold.
It is there, that
you bought and paid for your forgiveness of sins. You bought the sacrifice necessary for your
guilt before God. You paid for the coins
to give the priest for the temple tax.
It is there, you used your own hard earned money, to get forgiveness
from God – all of it through the blood of countless animals killed every
day.
The forgiveness of
sins was not cheap in the Jerusalem temple.
And what made it even worse was the way you got it. For through the hundreds of years that Jewish
people went to the temple to get forgiveness of sins, inflation ruled
supreme. The temple had its own
currency, its own coins you had to buy.
It was almost like Chucky Cheese, you went to the temple, and used the
real money to buy the temple coins, or tokens which you used to buy the other
sacrifices. And as if buying forgiveness
wasn’t bad enough the cost rose and rose and rose, for the priests in the
temple were taking advantage of the people.
The dwelling place
of God had become a den of robbers. The
holiest place in Israel was no longer a place of forgiveness, but a house of
trade to barter for forgiveness. How
very like us. For we too try to bargain
with God to get the things we want in the way we want. “God if you will heal my uncle, I swear I
will come to church more often. Lord, I
am going to sin just this one time, you’ll forgive me anyways, right? I mean, I do believe in you, so just let me
sneak by this time – it will only happen once I swear!”
We ourselves
become the thieves and robbers. We
ourselves steal from God in this way, and in so doing lose sight of the blood
that must be slain for our forgiveness – the true cost, the true price.
In our text, Jesus
walks right into the midst of this situation, and gets righteously angry. “How dare you make my house a place of
trade? How dare you spend so much time
and effort worrying about the price that you
must pay for forgiveness? How dare you
defame the place where God chooses to dwell?”
So Jesus makes a whip, and runs through the temple whipping and driving
out sin from the Jewish temple.
For Jesus knows
the truth, as we have mentioned, that blood must be shed. For in blood is the life of a creature. And since we sinners deserve death, lifeblood
must be poured out on our behalf. And it
must be done before God to count for our guilt, for our bargaining, for our
downright shamefulness.
For that is why
Jesus came. In our text today, there are
two temples. The Jewish temple, the
majestic building built by mere man for God to live, and the Jesus of Nazereth,
where God chose to dwell. Jesus would be
the temple where the ultimate sacrifice would occur. He would be the temple where all sin would be
forgiven now and forever – all yours, all mine, the entire worlds. It is there that not you at all, but God
would purchase your forgiveness.
Jesus tells the
Jews in the temple as much in our text.
“Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” No, not the buildings built by man, not the
place in Jerusalem. But the created
human flesh where the uncreated God dwells.
For as Jesus drove sin out of the temple building in Jerusalem with
whips in our text, so too would Jesus drive the sin out of the world as whips
struck his own flesh. In the temple of
his own flesh, Jesus would spill the blood necessary for your forgiveness. The very temple of God, the place where the
second person of the Trinity dwelt among his own people, would be destroyed.
It’s on the cross
that this all happens. This season of
Lent that is where we look, to a cross, where all our guilt, all our shame, all
our lust and hate and angriness is covered with blood from a sacrifice. The life of Christ pours out from his hands
and side for you so that no longer do you need to bicker and steal, but instead
that you might receive freely from God and share with those who are around
you.
You are washed in
the blood of Christ. You are covered with his righteousness. You belong to him, as you freely receive the
gifts from Christ – baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and his holy word.
The cross also
means a promise for you. For as the
temple of Jesus’s body was destroyed, so too did it raise again. On the third day following the crucifixion,
the tomb of Christ was empty. And this
is the promise. Covered in Christ’s blood
through baptism we have already died to our sin, and we are raised into
eternity with him, raised into the place where there no longer will need to be
atonement – where there will be no sin, not hurt, not pain. Raised to be with God – with Jesus forever
and ever.
Amen.
