We’re getting closer and closer to beginning construction on our new building. The ceremonial ground breaking will be the 8th of April and we hope to begin actual work in May!
There will be a few changes from time to time as various things are done. While we’re updating our electrical system in this building, something that we desperately need, the gift shop will be closed for a while. Since we use the income from the gift shop for the discretionary fund, we’ll keep the shop open somewhere, so we’re going to move the pews out of the chapel and temporarily place the shop in the chapel. After all, the proceeds go for a very worthy and holy cause. There’s an advantage in it, and that’s that it will be so close to larger groups of people we’ll probably have better sales. Because of that proximity, we can actually charge more and make a larger profit.
Do I have your attention? Most of what I’ve said is true. We are having a groundbreaking on 8 April with construction beginning hopefully in May. We’re redoing the electrical system in the old parts of this building and the gift shop will need to be closed for a while. We will not, however, put a shop in the chapel.
I said this because I wanted to elicit a response akin to what our Lord Jesus was feeling when he saw the desecration of the Temple. I wanted you to be concerned, but I hoped that you wouldn’t walk out on me so that I could explain I was just kidding!
For the Hebrew people, there was one place on earth where the divine presence could be encountered, and that was the place where Abraham brought his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice, and where God provided instead another sacrifice. It was the place on which the grand and beautiful Temple stood. At present, the Temple doesn’t exist. Destroyed in A.D. 70, on the only site where the Temple can be, there stands a mosque, the Dome of the Rock. The most defining object in Jerusalem today is the large gold dome of a Muslim mosque, standing on the only place where the one Temple of Judaism can exist.
When I was in the Holy Land the first time, non-Muslims could go into the Dome of the Rock and go underneath to see the actual rock upon which Abraham would have sacrificed Isaac. It’s an awesome experience to see that holy place. Non-Muslims can no longer enter that holy site.
In the first century A.D., if you had a baby, for instance, and wanted to thank God for that birth, you would come and make a sacrifice in the Temple. In fact, you were supposed to do that. You were to offer a sheep, but if you were poor, two doves would suffice, being much less expensive.
Any offering, however, had to be without blemish, and if you bought your offering outside of the Temple, where you could buy it cheaply, you ran the risk of the inspector finding a blemish which he would surely do, and then you’d have to buy your doves in the Temple anyway, paying an exorbitant price. In buying an animal in the Temple you couldn’t use your Roman money, which you used in every other aspect of your life, because Roman coins were stamped with the image of the Emperor. If you bought something in the Temple, like two doves, you first had to exchange your Roman coins for Palestinian shekels, and of course there would be an exchange fee.
It was a tremendous money-making scheme in a place that drew hundreds of thousands of visitors, especially during Passover. The part of the Temple where it took place was the outer court, the Court of the Gentiles, the only place where the Gentiles could worship. What was supposed to be a place of prayer for all people, had become something detestable, that took advantage of everyone, especially the poor, who couldn’t afford it and yet who were obligated by God’s law to make sacrifices in the Temple.
But it was what it was. Most everyone accepted it as a price you had to pay for faithfulness. The Temple was beautiful, and it did cost money to run such an operation. Jesus could have just gone along with the system, be popular with the people, curry the favor of the leadership. Our Lord didn’t see it that way. He loved the Temple. It was his Father’s house, and it was intended to be a place of prayer for all people. Instead, it was a den for thieves and robbers dressed in religious garb.
Jesus made a whip of cords and drove the salesmen and money changers, along with all of the animals, out of the Temple, pouring their coins on the ground and turning over the tables, ruining his chances for an invitation to say the invocation at the local Chamber of Commerce.
It was just this sort of thing that got him crucified. John Hines, former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, said, “They did not crucify Jesus for saying, “Behold, the lilies of the field, how they grow.” They crucified him for saying, ‘Consider the thieves of the Temple, how they steal.’”
The very things that are meant to bring us closer to God can be twisted to suit the tempter’s ends. But what we have, that the people in the Temple did not have, is the power of the risen Christ within us. As he predicted, he was put to death, that Temple of his body was destroyed, and in three days he was raised. The risen Christ is with us. There is no greater power on earth than that presence.
We will receive him into our lives anew when we receive his Body and Blood. Each of us is a Temple.
Allow Jesus to cleanse your temple. Invite him to take charge of your life anew.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
3rd Sunday of Lent
4 March 2018