The Unfruitful Temple
Preached by Jason Abbott
March 16, 2014
Last week we looked at part one of a three part picture in Mark’s gospel. Remember that Jesus, through his interaction with a deceptively unfruitful fig tree, pictured for us a confrontation he would soon be having in the temple courts. Today we’ll look at that confrontation with—that judgment upon—the temple and its leadership.
In order to open this passage up for us today, we need to ask three questions: (1) What would it have smelled like as Jesus entered the temple? (2) What would it have sounded like as Jesus entered the temple? And, (3) How do we smell and sound to the unbelieving world around us?
Yet, before we dig into these three questions, let’s read our passage and, then, pray for the Holy Spirit’s guidance as we consider Jesus’ actions here in Mark’s gospel.
Mark 11:15-19
15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. 19 And when evening came they went out of the city.
1. What would it have smelled like as Jesus entered the temple?
When Natalie and I moved here, there were many “must do” suggestions. We must go and see the state capitol building (indeed, “the handsomest building”); we must go and see Hershey Chocolate World and Hershey Park with our kids; however, there was one “must do” repeated more than any other suggestion. Natalie and I were told time after time that we must go and see, with our kids, the Farm Show! We must go in order to have the best chocolate milkshakes and the most amazing potato donuts!
So, of course, we went down to the Farm Show complex and took it all in. I’m certain that most here have been, but, if you haven’t, essentially they pack exhibit after exhibit into this convention center. There are nearly 6,000 animals: cattle, sheep, chickens, hogs, horses. You name the livestock and it’s surely there. It’s a giant building just brimming full of animals!
However, you don’t need to see the animals in order to know they’re there. As soon as you walk into the front doors of the building—before you see anything, before you hear anything, you are able to smell the distinctive odor of livestock! The heavy (and in my opinion unpleasant) smell of animals greets you and accompanies you throughout your Farm Show experience.
It’s with you when you drink your chocolate milkshake.
It’s with you when you eat your potato donut.
The smell is everywhere in that building!
As Jesus walked through the gates of the temple, he’d have had a similar olfactory experience to that of you walking through the doors of the Farm Show. The first thing to greet him would have been the heavy smell of thousands of animals for sale as sacrifices.
In his book History of the Jewish People, Emil Schurer expresses well the magnitude of the scene. He writes:
[The] huge quantity [of animals], so great as to be almost unbelievable, gave the Temple cults its peculiar stamp. Day after day, masses of victims were slaughtered there and burnt, and in spite of the thousands of priests, when one of the great festivals came round the multitude of sacrifices was so great that they could hardly cope with them.1
Josephus, the Jewish historian, recorded that some thirty years after this particular Passover celebration, in which Jesus confronts the temple and its leaders, that “255,600 lambs [alone] were sacrificed.”2(Now, calculate that in smell!)
I’ve been told there are high tech movie theaters available in which the sensory experience is so complete that you can even smell what’s in the movie. Unfortunately, we don’t have those capabilities at Community Free Church yet. However, if we did, I’d have a heavy livestock smell pumped into the sanctuary at this point in the sermon.
Let’s move on to the second question:
2. What would it have sounded like as Jesus entered the temple?
Certainly, as we’ve already established, there would’ve been lots of animals. Consequently, where there are lots of animals, there are lots of animal sounds. Thus, we can imagine the mooing and bahing and tweeting (of birds not celebs) which would have been part of Jesus’ sensory experience upon entering this first temple court.
Yet, these animal sounds would’ve been a mere scratch of the sonic surface. For, remember that, along with the animals, there’d have been animal vendors. There would have been a literal market place set up in this outer temple court. Many, many cattle and sheep and bird sellers would have been conducting business with the pilgrims who had come to the Passover festival.
Moreover, there would have been many money changers present as well. They would have been there because the “Roman money the pilgrims brought to Jerusalem had to be changed into the Tyrian currency (the closest thing to the old Hebrew Shekel), since the annual temple tax had to be paid in that currency.”3
So, add the noise of these business transactions into the mix.
When Jesus entered into this first temple court, I imagine that it would have sounded something like walking onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. All kinds of people would’ve been conducting business deals all over the place. When the noise levels would get louder, the people conducting the deals would get louder in order to compensate. Up and down the volume would go! Louder and then softer and then louder again!
Upon entering the temple, Jesus would’ve entered into a kind of sonic chaos!
So, it’s into these odors and sounds that Mark records Jesus came swinging. Mark writes of him:
[Jesus] entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying… “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers” (vv. 15-17).
After Jesus’ cursing of the fig tree for not having anything to eat in last week’s passage, you might simply think this is an early Snickers’ commercial. “Uh-oh! Get Jesus a Snickers bar, he’s throwing down tables in the temple again. You know how he gets when he’s hungry. And…Snickers really satisfies!”
This isn’t, however, grouchy Jesus taking out his frustration on the temple. As we learned, the cursing of the fig tree was an enacted parable (a visual lesson) signifying that the temple and its leadership had gotten terribly off track!
Now, as Jesus begins to cleanse (or judge) the outermost court of the temple, we begin to see how they’ve gotten off track.
The temple was divided into four areas. By far the most sacred was the Holy of Holies—only the high priest could enter this area and, then, only once a year. The next area, outside of the Holy of Holies, was known as the Court of Israel—only circumcised Jewish males could enter this area. Just outside of the Court of Israel was the Court of Women—this court was available for Israelite women. Finally, there was the Court of Gentiles—this “was the only place available to non-Jews for worship.”4
This is where the money changers and the sacrifice vendors had set up their shops!
This is the place where animal smells and chaotic and clamorous noises pollute the air!
Jesus is hot here! He is upset! For, the temple’s mission has been perverted. He says as much here by quoting first from the prophet Isaiah and then from the prophet Jeremiah.
The Isaiah passage reads:
[Foreigners] I will bring to my holy mountain, / and make them joyful in my house of prayer; / their burnt offerings and their sacrifices / will be accepted on my altar; / for my house shall be called a house of prayer / for all peoples (Isaiah 56:7).
How might a non-Jew come and understand and worship Israel’s God in the midst of these odorous and noisy circumstances?!!
So, Jesus cleanses the temple!
The Jeremiah passage is simply another condemnation in the same direction. It reads:
Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord (Jeremiah 7:11).
Because of all this commerce in the Court of Gentiles, Jesus condemns the temple leadership of robbery. These leaders had robbed “the Gentiles…of their rightful claim to the worship of Israel’s God.”5 They had twisted and, then, lost a central part God’s mission for the temple—to reach the nations!
So, Jesus cleanses the temple!
How did the temple smell and sound to Jesus that day? It smelled and sounded bad—both literally and figuratively.
It smelled like a zoo. However, it also smelled like the decay of the temple’s purpose—to be a proclamation to the nations, a house of prayer to the peoples.
It was deafening. And, in the midst of all that deafening, chaotic babel, Jesus didn’t hear the message of truth—God is One; there is no other.
So, Jesus cleanses the temple!
This, consequently, brings us to our third and final question:
3. How do we smell and sound to the unbelieving world around us?
It’s worth noting that the animals and commerce surrounding the temple had likely recently been moved into the Court of Gentiles for the sake of convenience. It was simply easier to exchange money and buy animals there than to do so outside the temple and then transport an animal into the temple so as to sacrifice it. So, the smells and the sounds that were robbing the Gentiles of access to God were there because it made worship more convenient for the Israelites.
How (for the sake of our convenience) do we do the same kinds of things?
Is the Sunday morning service all about us? Are small group Bible studies all about us? Are men’s and women’s ministries all about us?
It is often inconvenient for us to make the ministries of the church inviting and welcoming to those outside the church: * Going out of our way to show visitors where the nursery or Sunday school rooms are can be inconvenient. * Moving to the center of an isle to make room for visitors can be inconvenient. * Not parking in the best possible parking spot but leaving it for newcomers can be inconvenient.
But, Sunday services or Bible studies or other ministries aren’t the church. You, if you follow Jesus, are the church. Jesus’ disciples are the temple of God.
Figuratively speaking, how do we smell and sound in the world we’re in? Do our neighbors and coworkers sense gospel in us?
It’s very hard to be the smell and the sound of the good news: * Having neighbors to dinner in order to get to know them so that we can speak the gospel into their lives can be very hard work. * Choosing to care for coworkers who aren’t nice is hard. * Praying for and reaching out to the friends of our children who aren’t, perhaps, the best influence is difficult.
As we close, let me say that we need to wrestle with such questions. However, if we’re only thinking about our safety or our comfort then we are just like the temple Jesus clears. And, we are not like our crucified Lord and Savior!
1 Emil Schurer, History of the Jewish People, 2.308.
2 Josephus, War, 6.422-27.
3 Walter W. Wessel, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Mark, 727.
4 James R. Edwards, The Gospel According to Mark, 343.
5 Wessel, 728.
