Why is Jesus So PO'd?

On the Temple Tantrum and the Incarnation

John 2.13-22

The lectionary Gospel passage for the Third Sunday of Lent is John’s account of Jesus’s Temple Tantrum:

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making 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. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After 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.

Here’s my question:

Why is Jesus so righteously angry?

And notice, Jesus is not spontaneously PO’d— this is a premeditated crime.

What happened to the cute baby Jesus in the golden fleece diapers? I mean, this Jesus takes the time to craft his weapon, braiding his whip before cracking it. He drives the cattle off in all directions. He sends the sheep away bleating. He sets the caged birds free. And then Jesus kicks over all the ATMs.

• John puts this moment of aggressive street theater at the beginning of the Gospel.

• In Matthew, Mark, and Luke it comes at the end of Jesus’s ministry; in fact, it is the stunt that finally seals his fate.

Why?

Why does Jesus pitch this Temple tantrum? Why’s he so angry?

The economy of exchange? The animal kiosks and currency converters?

It’s in the Bible— this business had to be done.

These priests and pilgrims are simply obeying God’s Law. They’re doing what the scriptures command them to do. On Mount Sinai, God doesn’t just reveal to Moses ten commandments. God keeps on talking and gives to Moses over six hundred commandments, including blueprints for the tabernacle and instructions for the cycle of sacrifices God’s People were to offer there, sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving and sacrifices for sin to make atonement.

The economy of sacrifice is explicit in the Law.

Because high holy days like Passover and Yom Kippur attracted pilgrims from all over the Jewish diaspora, from Gentile nations, Israel had to take care that no one made an offering to the Holy God with an unclean animal.

You needed your meat to be ethically sourced.

You didn’t want your Jewish cousin from Jersey coming into Jerusalem for the holiday with a cow from some pagan farmer’s herd in tow.

It’s spelled out. The animals sanctioned for sacrifice in the Temple had to be purchased at the Temple so that their provenance was guarranteed.

Is this why Jesus is angry?

If so, why? After all, Jesus is the one who spoke to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

Of course—

Roman occupation made even simple, everyday transactions in Israel morally complicated.

Rome’s currency bore the image of Caesar along with the inscription, “Caesar Augustus, Son of God.” In doing so, Roman coins baldly violated Yahweh’s first and most important commandment (“You will have no other gods but God”); therefore, in order for Jews to make the sacrificial offerings prescribed by God’s Law they first had to exchange Caesar’s currency for special Temple currency— the Temple currency functioned like the coins at Chuck E. Cheese; they could only be spent in that place and they had no value outside of it. And sure, this currency conversion was not part of God’s design— and maybe it’s a bit unseemly with all the airport terminal upcharges— but what were God’s People supposed to do?

Is this really why Jesus is mad as hell?

If so, he’s cracking the whip at the wrong people, right?

Israel didn’t invite Caesar into their lives.

Caesar invaded them.

So, if it’s not the sacrificial animals or the currency exchange, then what is it? What’s Jesus driven to a felonious rage?

Notice—

In the midst of his Temple tantrum, Jesus refers to himself as the Temple:

“Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

By contrast, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke this statement is put on the lips of Christ’s accusers at his trial. What’s more, his accusers edit the statement, claiming Jesus said:

“I will destroy this Temple and in three days I will build another.”

• In Matthew, Mark, and Luke the accusers make Jesus the agent of destruction.

• But, in John’s Gospel, Jesus makes us the agents of destruction, which makes Jesus the Temple.

Hold up—

If Jesus is the Temple, if Jesus is the unmediated presence of the holy God, maker of heaven and earth, then what’s inside that other Temple?