Third Sunday in Lent, March 7th, Year of
Our + Lord 2021
Our Redeemer and Our Savior’s Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, South Dakota
The Whip of God – In Christ Alone
Exodus
20:1-17, 1st Corinthians 1:18-31, St. John 2:13-22
Christus solus, in Christ alone. Of the Five Solas, the Five “Alones” of the
Lutheran Reformation, the truth that our salvation is in Christ alone is
the key, the most central point of all. By
Grace alone, through Faith alone, according the teaching of
Scripture alone, these three wonderful Solas all flow from, and carry us
to, Jesus Christ. And we discover that
only through Christ can we rightly give glory to God alone.
The Word of God before us today drives
home the uniqueness, the aloneness, of the Man from Nazareth, in many and
various ways.
Jesus alone thought it was a good plan to
make a whip from cords in order to drive out those selling animals and
exchanging money in the Temple courtyard.
To everyone else, it seemed foolish.
Jesus was only one man, just an itinerant preacher from the sticks, with
only a rabble of uneducated disciples to back Him up, a bunch of fishermen,
misfits, and women. On the other hand, the
merchants and money changers in the Temple courts were connected to the most
powerful people in Jerusalem. They made
a good living by providing a needed service to Jewish pilgrims coming to
celebrate the Passover. You see, the
festivals of YHWH required various sacrificial animals, which would have been
very difficult for pilgrims coming from far away to bring with them. Much better to sell them to the pilgrims on
site. And of course we’ll need money
changers to deal with foreign currency.
And, oh by the way, a nice profit can be had while we are at it.
Nothing necessarily wrong with any of
that, really, except the where. The only
for sure problem was the place they chose to do it: inside the Temple grounds,
that holy space set aside by God, where He promised to be present to bless His
people and receive their offerings, prayers and thanksgiving. Most likely, this animal market was set up in
the Court of the Gentiles, that outermost part of the Temple grounds, set aside
for foreign believers in YHWH. But is it
really so important that all the nations, all those pesky foreigners who come
and crowd our home town during tourist season, do they really need to have a
place to pray in our Temple?
Besides, it’s so convenient to set up the market here, we’re really
helping everyone. Everybody agrees.
Everybody, except One. Only Jesus burned with zeal for His Father’s
House, a righteous indignation that what God had given for holiness had been
profaned, made dirty, and stolen from the gentile believers.
Only Jesus thought it was a good plan. One can imagine the looks on the faces of His
disciples, as their Master sat in a corner of the Temple, weaving His whip of
cords. What is He up to now? Our Lord cleansing the Temple seems foolish
to us, ultimately ineffective, a powerless gesture, and oh by the way, not very
nice. Is this really the image that God
wants to portray? Wouldn’t it be wiser
and more effective to be reasonable, to work within the system to make
improvements? Won’t Jesus, fighting all
by himself be overpowered by the Jewish authorities, in the end?
We always want to make such modifications to
God’s plan, whenever we find that His way bumps up against the way of the
world, and makes us uncomfortable. The
Lord says “You shall have no other gods.”
But some of our neighbors are offended by such exclusive claims. If God is love, we reason, shouldn’t we be
tolerant and respectful of all religions?
Can’t we find some good in them also?
Don’t all roads lead to the same God?
Christ alone has the nerve to say, “No, I am the only true Way to the
Father.”
The Lord says, “Set aside a day each week to
rest, and hear my Word, and receive my blessings!” But our bank accounts tell us that giving up
1/7 of our potential earning power could really cut into our retirement
savings, and that seems unwise, no?
Christ alone says, “Earthly wealth is fleeting, but you, you store up
your treasure in heaven.”
The Lord gives us His Holy Name to call upon
in prayer, praise and thanksgiving. But
we don’t want to stand out like some religious nut, talking about God in public
as if we actually believe in Him. Not
when the whole world peppers their speech with meaningless babble that sullies
the Name of God: Oh my God. Jesus.
Christ. Oh Good Lord. These and many more exclamations can be
spoken in a holy, Christian way, or in a vulgar, thoughtless way. Which do we choose?
We could go on through the other seven
commandments, and maybe we should. But
we already know that we fail to keep all of them, as we are commanded and have
promised to do. In fact, only One
person, Jesus alone, among all the people of all time and place, only Jesus has
kept the Ten Commandments perfectly, without blemish. We all fall short.
Which is no excuse. Take no comfort from being just like everyone
else. Instead, we should marvel at the
active righteousness of Jesus alone.
Repent. Turn from your sin and
look to Jesus. See that even His anger,
even His indignation at the selfish pride of mankind, was righteous and
sinless. His violence against the
merchants and money changers in the Temple was entirely justified, because the
Holiness of the Father’s house demanded the unleashed zeal of the Son.
The Son of God came into this world in order
to cleanse the Temple. That’s the sum
and total of His plan. Not only to drive
out the merchants and money changers who were defiling the Court of the
Gentiles that day in Jerusalem, but even more to cleanse and purify the sinful
flesh of humanity, so that your body could be made a Temple of the Holy
Spirit. The whole mystery of His
suffering, death and resurrection is foreshadowed in His foolish outburst, when
He made a whip, and used it to drive out the buyers and sellers contaminating
the Lord’s House in Jerusalem.
Think about that whip. Imagine, if you will, the unique quality of
the whip made by God’s Son. I could
imagine a Roman soldier picking up that piece of divine craftsmanship the next
day, when it had been thrown out by the merchants, as they reorganized their
market. Such a good whip, unique,
perfect for a Roman executioner to add some nails on the ends of the cords, all
the better to torture some poor fool sentenced to suffer the wrath of the
governor, Pontius Pilate.
This would fit with God’s foolish plan to
sanctify fallen humanity by tearing down the Temple that was the human body of
the Christ. Through the weakness of
Jesus’ foolish challenge to the Jewish authorities, through the absurdity of
His boast that He would rebuild this torn down Temple in three days, through
His bitter suffering and death at the hands of both the Jews and the Romans,
who ruled over the Greek speaking world, through this foolish plan, Christ
alone would make holy again the flesh of fallen humanity. For this he took up our flesh into His
divinity, in His Incarnation, when He became a man, the Son of Mary, in order
to be the Savior of all people.
Only Christ, and Christ alone, could and
would use violence to bring peace, suffering to deliver joy, and weakness to
reveal the power of God unto Salvation.
Jesus, who gave the Law to Moses, and who alone kept that Law perfectly,
went alone to the Cross, tortured by His enemies, deserted by His friends,
finally enduring the utter solitude of that eternal moment of abandonment, when
He alone accepted the wrath of God against all our sin.
The blessed exchange is complete, the time
for violence is past. It is
finished. In Christ alone there is peace
between God and humanity, peace which we are uniquely empowered to share with
the world.
And so, you are set free to love, because
you have been loved perfectly by the One True God.
You are emboldened to call on God’s Name in
every circumstance, to honor the Lord’s Name by praying, praising and giving
thanks, even in public. Because you have
been given life in that Holy Name.
You can endure the misguided scorn and even
the persecution of the world, because you have been eternally honored and
granted a place in glory, by Christ alone.
And through the foolish lives of His faithful people, God will draw more
sinners to Christ alone, for their salvation, and His glory.
The foolishness of the preaching of the
Cross gives you life, and joy, because in the Resurrection the weakness and
folly of God are revealed to be stronger and wiser than anything we humans have
to offer. And, grace upon grace, in
Christ alone we find that we poor sinners are now declared by the Father to be
righteous, holy, redeemed and restored.
Our lowly bodies have been transformed, through the washing of Water and
the Word, to now be temples of the Holy Spirit, the very dwelling place of
God. Forgiven and called beloved by the
Father, we give glory to God alone by boasting in Christ alone, in whom we have
life, true life, abundant life, today, and forever and ever, Amen.
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