This is the second Sunday that A.M.E. Today Newsletter has had the privelege of bringing
the word to its virtual friends around the world.
Today our scripture is drawn from John 2:13-22:
2:13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up
to Jerusalem.
2:14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep,
and doves, and the
money changers seated at their tables.
2:15 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.
2:16 He told those who were selling the doves, "Take
these things out of here!
Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!"
2:17 His disciples remembered that it was written,
"Zeal for your house will
consume me."
2:18 The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you
show us for doing this?"
2:19 Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it
up."
2:20 The Jews then said, "This temple has been under
construction for forty-six
years, and will you raise it up in three days?"
2:21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body.
2:22 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.
It takes a lot to REALLY make Jesus angry.
Throughout the Bible, you see things happening to Jesus that would literally make us have
steam coming out of our ears.
Jesus approached most of the problems in his life with a meek and mild temperament.
It hardly seems He ever raised his voice.
So when that temperament changed, the disciples and all those who knew Jesus knew
something really offensive had occurred.
Jesus had gone into the temple. What he found really offended him.
People were selling animals for sacrifice within the temple walls. Some people were
changing money from the Roman coinage to the Temple coinage, so people would have the
proper exchange to buy sacrificial animals.
Jesus was appalled and angry.
There were people within the temple making money on people trying to cleanse their sins.
They were selling God by the pound.
Jesus became furious, he took a chord, probably his belt, and started lashing out at the
vendors and money changers. He freed animals, He turned tables over. He gave the
Temple a good spring cleaning.
Spring cleaning is something I heard about before I ever experienced it.
It was a staple on televison when I grew up. In sitcoms, there always would be
a women pictured, in work clothes, with her hair tied up, dusting, mopping, tossing away
those things no longer needed. When asked what inspired her her hustle and bustle,
she would say she was spring cleaning.
I always equated spring cleaning with being a time of renewal. A once-a-year, fresh clean
start.
A house-cleaning time when you got rid of those things you did not need and then
straightened up and cleaned up those things that remained.
Jesus took the time to spring clean the temple, to get rid of those things
unpleasing to Him in order to strengthen those things that remained.
This is the time of year that people most often speak of spring cleaning. Perhaps it
is time for us to access both our personal and literal temples.
Money changers and vendors are not the only problems that can slip within our walls of
worship.
We also have to number in the ranks, dissention, back-biting, gossip-mongering, covetness
and a dozen or more other ways of the world that line up in our pews each and every Sunday
of the year. That linger and dwell in our personal temples...our bodies.
When Jesus cleaned house, it was done with force but with love, since His goal was to
restore the temple to being a place where His father could be worshipped.
We need to go about our spring cleaning with an eye to similar results.
We too need to get those things out of our temples which are not pleasing to our Lord.
Cleanse ourselves of those things that prevent us from hearing His word. Dust
away the cobwebs of discontent. Scrub out the stains of transgressions. Sweep
away attitudes and personality clashes. Scrub up the messes our egos and mis-guided
good intentions have caused, so we have a clean, fresh, foundation for the Lord
again to build upon.
Who wants to move into a dirty house? We don't. Why would we want Jesus to
move into mess.
Is your house in order this morning? Would it pass Jesus' white glove test?
If you are like me, there is fix up, patch up, clean up in your immediate future.
And, right now is a good time as any, to start doing a little spring cleaning for the Lord
