Destroying the Temple
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
March 25, 2005 (Good Friday)
Matthew 27:32-56
We have heard the Passion story a number of times in the past few days. We have read it as part of our Palm Sunday services last week and again last night as part of our Holy Thursday/Tenebrae service. And we read elements of it again this afternoon as we gather here on Good Friday.
One of the things about reading Scripture is that every time we read it we gain new insight, new things leap out at us. New clues make themselves apparent to us. One of the things that we notice as we read over the gospel accounts of Jesus’ last week, especially Jesus’ last day is how often the charge is leveled at him as one who said he would “destroy the temple and build it in three days.” This charge we find repeated over and over again in the Gospels, it shows up in all four–this idead that Jesus had said he would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days.
It gives us a clue as to why Jesus might not have been so popular with the religious authorities. Perhaps we can put ourselves in that situation and wonder what it would be like to march into the National Cathedral and declare that we would destroy the cathedral and in three days rebuild it. We’d probably wind up on a watchlist somewhere. We can imagine what challenging religious authorities and institutions would get us in terms of the welcome we would received from religious leadership, by threatening the very institutions of that religion.
There’s something about that that is particularly dangerous. There is something about the fact that Jesus is identified as someone wh made that claim, that helps us to understand why he became alienated so quickly. Temples in the ancient world were not simply centers of worship and religious study. They were centers of commerce and culture. In many ways they were the embodiment of the nation. And so for Jesus to say “I will destroy this temple and in three days raise it” would have been perceived as an attack all that it stood for: strength, stability, way of life.
So, it’s no surprise to us then that those who would have been in religious authority would have perceived Jesus as a threat. We have often talked about how those who would have been in political authority would have perceived the same thing. Jesus was, after all, crucified by the Romans as “King of the Jews”–a reminder that he was crucified for being seditious, treasonous even; claiming a title that only Caesar could claim. And so in Jesus on the cross, we see a man who has come up against religious power, political power, and cultural power. A friend of mine once noted that in the Gospel of John is recorded the tradition that the sign “Jesus, King of the Jews” is written in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew–the languages of government, culture, and religion. He comes against power in those three spheres and winds up on the cross because of it.
In many ways, Jesus does does destroy the temple. Far beyond the symbolism of the temple of his body, Jesus does destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days. If we look at the temple as symbolizing those things to which we give power and authority, and those things to which we defer and pledge allegiance. Then Jesus death on the cross destroys those temples for us. Jesus goes to the cross to show us that all the political power in the world, the religious power, the economic power–power strong enough to invoke a death sentence–all that power, still is not the ultimate power that is in charge.
He goes to the cross and dies a horrible, humiliating death for us, that we might get to experience the power of the Empty Tomb that lies not three days beyond. Jesus goes to the cross as a way of saying “This is what power looks like. Power that gives of itself for the sake of others. That is the power that God offers”. He goes to the cross to say “It is not the religions of the world, not the governments of the world, not the markets of the world that have sway. It is not those things that are in charge of the world. Rather it the God in whom I trust to raise me to new life on the third day.”
Jesus gets into a lot of trouble during that final week for overturning the tables outside the temple. We often lose sight of what he might have been doing there. We have often written it off as a simple protest about houses of worship selling things, and in reality he is making a demonstration that God is overturning the tables of our lives. God is overturning what we think is in charge and holds sway. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, challenging the way we regard kingly power. He goes to the cross challenging the way we understand a savior and a deliverer. And in the end he rises on Easter Sunday challenging the way we think the world works. He reminds us that in all things God is in charge.
We then who gather on Good Friday and stand at the foot of the cross, might be tempted to scoff and to say, “You who said you would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself.” And yet, we know how powerfully Jesus has already affected us in our own lives. We have seen the witness of the church for two thousand years, transformed by God’s power, transformed by a reenergized belief in God’s deliverance and God’s grace. We have seen real power at work in the world so that we can stand at the foot of the cross, we can stand on Golgotha with Jesus and we can say, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, destroy our temples and rebuild them for us.”
