Year B
John 2:13-22
The Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Challenge of the Cross
As a child, a visit to the state fair wasn’t complete without a visit to the house of mirrors. I loved going in, but then, would get so confused as I wound my way through trying to find the way out. And not to mention the many ways I was transformed as I stood in front of skinny mirrors, fat mirrors, and wavy mirrors. I had mile-long legs one minute and a neck as long as a giraffe’s the next. I didn’t even recognize myself at times and my, did it make me laugh. As I got older and had the opportunity to take my daughter to the fairs, I found the mirrors less amusing. The distortion would bring my flaws into greater focus, take what I would prefer to hide and blow it out of proportion, or reduce my best features to something grotesque. Today, even the everyday mirrors aren’t very flattering.
It seems that life can sometimes be like looking in a house of mirrors when we start to believe what we see is reality. But in the scriptures for today, we see how God turns upside down the world as we know it to show us a more excellent way; whether in the thundering voice of God at Mount Sinai, the foolishness of the cross, or God’s presence among us. In God’s more excellent way, the distortions of our mirrors fall away and as Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann describes “We begin to get a glimpse of God’s full intention for the life of creation.”
We have to admit, that as Christians when we use the wisdom of the world, look in the mirrors of the world, how odd our faith looks. For we claim that the most important divine action in history is the humiliating death of a poor Jew on a cross at the hands of an occupying power. The central Christian symbol of our faith, the cross, an instrument of torture and death, should evoke an image of horror instead we use the word blessing. The cross, instead of a dramatic demonstration of God’s power, the world sees weakness and failure and we say this is a blessing. How odd it is to speak of the cross as a blessing, at best it is a paradox and at worst a contradiction.
Paul, very aware of this paradox, wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians: “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. God reveals God’s self in powerlessness by becoming weak and vulnerable. We are formed as a community of faith around what seems to be utter foolishness, yet, an instrument of torture and death is used for the salvation of the world. The world sees a Messiah who suffers and dies. Yet, out of this death God brings resurrection and new life. For Paul, the cross was the supreme instance of God’s wisdom and power. In the cross, we are given that glimpse of God’s full intention for the life of creation.
What the cross says to us is that it is not through the world’s wisdom that we come to know God. We come to know God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. When we cling to the values of the world, the cross becomes a stumbling block for many. Seeking our identity in the wisdom of this world will find us falling away from God. Is it any wonder then, that when Jesus entered the sacred temple that day and saw that it had been taken over by buyers and sellers, consumers and marketers, the values of the world, he overturns the tables and upsets the entire temple system? This was the normal, expected way of doing things in the Temple especially around the holy days. Without these venders, the system did not work. And this structure, with its rules and order, venders and priests, were all a part of what each individual had to navigate to come into the presence of God.
We can only imagine what the scene must have been like. “The courtyard of the Temple most likely smelled like a barnyard. Underneath the bleating of sheep and cattle noises you could hear the doves cooing in their cages. At low tables sat the money changers. The clink, clink of heavy coins was constant. And irritated, impatient voices were raised in arguments over the rates of exchange. The temple courtyard was full of intense, busy people trying to get the best deal on an animal for the year’s Passover offering. Even the most righteous Jews would have trouble praying in this holy place.” Hence, the anger of Jesus, who was outraged because they were hindering the true worship of God. Jesus came to the temple to overturn every barrier that separates us from God.
John sets this story at the beginning of his gospel to show it as a defining-point in the ministry of Jesus. This story is found in all four gospels. Yet, Matthew, Mark and Luke set it after the Truimphal Entry into Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week, to serve as one of the reasons leading to Jesus’ crucifixion. For John, this is the moment that opens his eyes to understanding Jesus’ true identity. This moment for John, is when the temple and the new dwelling place of the Lord collide, so to speak. Jesus, by overturning the tables, interrupts and turns upside down an entire notion of what the temple is to be about by speaking and acting God’s truth as the prophets before him had so boldly proclaimed.
Instead of the temple existing for the glory of God, it existed for its own personal agenda and profit. Endangering the true worship of God and this same stumbling block exists in the church today and in our lives. The church does not exist for personal agendas or profit or to make ourselves feel good. The church is here for the glory of God and worship is endangered because of the loss of habit. It is ironic that the only way we can actually accomplish what we all most deeply want-our own ultimate happiness-is to give up our own agenda’s, to give up the values of this world and give ourselves to God’s agenda and God’s values of love, justice, and mercy.
The cross challenges us to ask; are we about God’s agenda or are we about ourselves? It is in Christ, in his words and acts, in his death and resurrection that the truth is revealed to us about who God is, who we are, and what we have to do with and for one another. It would seem to the world, that our faith is formed around what looks to be utter foolishness but what looks foolish to the world is actually wise. This is the paradox of our faith and the blessing that brings salvation and new life. We can celebrate what the world sees as foolishness, believing instead that nothing is impossible with God, not even saving and redeeming, this beautiful, broken creation with a crazy, amazing love.