Clean up! ...

Friday, May 2, 2014. Have you ever had the feeling that you should clean up a little bit? Sometimes, when you come into your bedroom, you might think: hm, I really need to order things, it does not look so beautiful currently.

Need for cleaning up …

With our teen kids we sometimes have the discussion: is there any need to clean up? We have a boy of age 11 who likes to leave his room in a state of big mess. And he does not really accept the need of cleaning up - he just does it since we urge him to do so.

Are we all a little bit like this? We do not recognize or accept the need, that our life needs a big clean up. We do many things, which would need sincere revision. We need renewal, but we do not even realize the situation appropriately!

Reading the Gospel of John, we come to an event today where Jesus feels the need to clean up. This is about the way to deal with God and with his temple. Let us have a look:

13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple,3 and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When therefore 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.

The temple …

The story talks about the temple. That is the place which was built first by Solomon, to build a house for God. Even in the ancient times of David and Solomon it was quite clear, that God does not need a house, since heaven is like his chair and the earth is like his footrest. But still, God accepted the with of humans that he might have a dwelling place among them - and many stories in the Old Testament deal with the house of God and how we should treat it, since God is holy!

If you translate “temple” with “the place where God lives”, then the story becomes more clear. God came to us in Jesus. God lives in Jesus, in particular in the risen Jesus after his death and resurrection. “In three days I will raise up the temple” - it is just a figurative way of speaking about the resurrection events. This became clear to the disciples immediately after it happened.

But this is not the end of the story! The New Testament speaks of the Holy Spirit, who is coming to each and every believer and is taking his dwelling place in us. Humans are the new temple of the Lord. So everything which applies to the temple, today applies to the members of the church. And thus, Jesus acts of cleaning as they are reported here in the Gospel of John, get a clear meaning. We are supposed to clean our own life, our own environment and our own thoughts and actions. The holy God is here! Listen, and do. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts