Sacred Space #9

Here is the next bible study summary - working on the final two in the series..
-Linda

Jesus and the temple 12/3/10

In John’s Gospel Jesus replaces the temple. After he announces his ministry at the wedding feast at Cana, the first thing Jesus does is to shut down the temple. This event is placed at the end of his ministry in the Synoptic Gospels – which is more likely to be chronologically correct. It is hard to imagine that he would have succeeded in completely disrupting the business of the temple without having established a reputation and a large following. John places the incident at the beginning of his Gospel to signal that he is reconstituting the human relationship with the divine. That he is making all things new.

Traditionally the purpose of placing the clearing of the temple at the start of the book was understood as the gospel reconstituting the sacred order. The temple still exists – but has been replaced by the body of Jesus. The temple therefore becomes cosmic and bigger – the underlying sacrificial system remains. In the Roman Catholic tradition this is evident in the idea of the universal sacrifice of the mass, no longer limited to one central temple but accessible on any church altar. Wooden church altars to this day are required to have an embedded piece of stone that evokes the ancient sacrificial altars. Protestant churches may not have altars but often have tables set aside for the purpose of communion, with a sacred aura and which cannot be used for more secular things.

Jn 2:13-22 gives us the account of the clearing of the temple. It is the feast of the Passover, celebrating the liberation of the Exodus. It describes a scene of dramatic action. Jesus drives out the sacrificial animals, along with the money changers and the traders. The money changers were engaged in exchanging the shekel into the officially approved Tyrian coin—probably with the most stable value as currency. This was surely one of the most lucrative industries in Jerusalem.

Next time the temple is mentioned is in Jn 5: 1-9 – the healing of the man at the pool of Siloam. This takes place during a feast. This feast is most likely the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost was a festival that celebrated the first fruits of the harvest. The healing takes place at the sheep gate – the place where animals enter to be prepared for slaughter. The healing here is already a displacement of sacrifice.

The third mention of the temple is in Jn 7: 1-11. This time the incident is during the feast of Succoth – the festival of Booths. Succoth, the later harvest festival, included dancing with fires and drink in the piazza of the temple. It celebrated the goodness of the land. It also recalled the wandering in the wilderness. Its name comes from the tents or booths that the people made as shelter in the wilderness. Jesus is staying away from Judea because the authorities were looking to kill him. His disciples go to Jerusalem to take part in the festival. Jesus initially says he will not go but then goes in secret. On the last day of the festival the priest traditionally poured water all over the altar – possibly relating to the Ezekiel prophesy about water flowing out from the temple, but also to the prophesy in Zechariah 14. Jerusalem is pictured as the source of a mighty river, of life for the whole world. Here (in v.37-39) Jesus again displaces the temple. He cries out “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” This echoes Jesus’ meeting with the woman at the well in Samaria. There the invitation was for her to drink living water – here the invitation is extended to the whole world.

The feast of Booths is also an eschatological feast. It refers to a Messianic text in the prophet Zechariah about the future king (the anointed one). Zechariah was written immediately after the exile (about 530-510 BCE) at a time when there were no kings in Israel. The King described in Zechariah is a peaceful one, a non-violent Messiah (not planning on rebelling against Persian overlords). Zechariah 9: 9-10 describes him riding on a donkey instead of a horse, (associated with warriors and war). Instead he is to bring peace to the nations. Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey in the Synoptics signals that he is to be a Zechariah style messiah.

Zechariah is written at the end of the time of the prophets. The fifth century BCE marks the end of the monarchy. As they disappeared so too did the court prophets and also the need for prophets speaking out against the injustices associated with power. What replaced the court was the temple, and with it a move towards religious purity. When John the Baptist comes he is the eruption of a new prophetic voice after a period of silence. What is new about John the Baptist’s message is the element of apocalyptic. An increasing sense that God himself has to break into history to transform the world, overcome the wicked and raise up the good. His message is a call to prepare because God is going to come soon. Jesus embraces this, but changes the message to a non-violent act by God – not the expected violent war against evil.

Chapter 14 of Zechariah is one of the earliest apocalyptic texts. It is the chapter associated with the festival of Booths. Jerusalem has no army here – instead it is God’s army who fights for the people. Zech 14:8 describes the living water flowing out from Jerusalem. In v.16 the enemies that have been defeated in the battle will keep the festival of Booths. It describes the end times, when all things promised to all peoples will come to pass. It is an eschatological, or last-times, text. It is a vision of peace and celebration and the end of purity boundaries. “On that day there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses, ‘Holy to the Lord’. And the cooking pots in the house of the Lord shall be as holy as the bowls in front of the altar; and every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and use them to boil the flesh of the sacrifice. And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.” (v20-21).

The horse represented war and military power. Even the bells on the horses, the most secular things, will be inscribed as holy. The cooking utensils are holy. Everything that is secular will be filled with holiness. The people will not need to have special pots to prepare the meat of sacrifices. Pots were used to carry the sacrificed meat from the temple back to the family. At the time of the Passover clay ovens were set up on street corners to help cook the meat so that it would last the journey home. Here everything is reversed. Here the pots in the city kitchens are holy. There essentially is no need for a temple, or at the least the basic distinctions on which it is based are destroyed.

In fulfillment of this feast of Booths prophesy, Jesus gets rid of the animals and the traders in the temple. Mark 11:15 tells the same story. “..and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.” This has often been understood in sacrificial terms – that Jesus was keeping the temple space holy and pure by not allowing anything to be carried in to it, maintaining the sacred space of the sanctuary.

But the word used for “anything” here is skeuos which means vessel or utensil generally, and in the context of the temple refers to all the paraphernalia of sacrifice (there are numerous OT uses in this sense) and of course including pots. Jesus was preventing the traffic of vessels, the kind used in sacrifices to carry materials in and the carcasses out. It should be best translated as “pots”, as in the Zechariah prophesy (although the actual word in Zechariah is not skeuos). Jesus’ action marks the end of the sacred function of the temple. In the Synoptics it is after this that the authorities seek to kill him. Jesus is slain by the forces that would keep the sacrificial system going.