Jesus was not such a gentle, non-confrontational person that we often see pictured in paintings. He was very much an “in your face” kind of person. He did it with His words and with His actions. And those words and actions so often confront our cultural biases. Take today’s passage as an example.
Jesus has turned water into wine, an alcoholic beverage that gets people drunk! It is not that they had not already had enough to drink. They had. They had already consumed all the wine provided by the groom. And he makes another 25 gallons! And it is the best quality served at the banquet. So much for our teetotaling mental images!
And then John records Jesus violently clearing the Temple of all the commercial enterprises. I know we don’t have a Temple today, but I wonder what Jesus would think of gift items for sale in the lobby of the church? Or coffee outlets? Or the Jesus people paraphernalia on our walls at home? Just thinking out loud, not making any final decisions.
And then the religious authorities come up and ask Jesus to prove He is allowed to do these types of things. Who is He to try and clean up the mess they have allowed, perhaps even profited from? They want more than words. They don’t want “I have the authority.” They want a physical sign. They are in essence saying that talk is cheap. Put up or shut up.
Jesus’ answer points to His death and resurrection. His body becomes a new Temple that gets destroyed and rebuilt. It is easy to rebuild a Temple made of stone; quite another thing to rise from the dead. With all our advanced technology we can’t even make the simplest of living organisms from scratch. We can take what already exists and manipulate it, extracting the already produced DNA and splicing and dicing it, but we haven’t even begun to start from scratch. We can’t throw the essential elements into a bowl and have the most fundamental combination arise on its own, or even with the greatest amount of intervention possible.
When Jesus rose from the dead this even made sense to the disciples. Jesus was yet again telling them of the key element of their relationship with God. It would not be a physical building, but through His physical body. He would be the key. All must come through Him. He became the new Temple through which forgiveness and reconciliation became available to all. A new community arose and spanned culture and geography.
The Arnold Journey 