T
he city teemed with Passover celebrants. Children bounced gaily in the streets. In Herod’s temple, customers argued with merchants over prices of sacrificial animals. There were men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. It had ceased as a place of worship. It had become a marketplace, perhaps having once providing a reasonable service to those traveling from far distances, but now it had become a floor for exchange, a snakepit of religious commerce. Jesus did not much like religious commerce.
He entered the temple quietly, unobtrusively. He was not noticed. Like any other seeker of sacrificial commodities, he wandered from table to table, shopping, as it were. Inside of him, his stomach churned. Fury mounted. Nausea. One merchant offering a “sale.” Another “deep discounts.” Yet another “Two for the price of one.” Signs hawking these things and other religious merchandise spread everywhere in profusion. Smoke and haze hung lazily in the air. Loud haggling. Merchants discussing with fellow merchants the blatant stupidity of those that bought. Customers discussing among themselves the inflated prices. “Robbery!” someone complained.
A richly dressed person of obvious wealth paid outrageous prices for several lambs, each pure white and without blemish, for sacrifice, his polished fingernails selecting each one. One for himself and one for each of his family. “Had I charged him less,” said the merchant, “he would not have bought them. Such a man is insulted by cheap goods.” A woman, by her dress abysmally poor, looked at the penny in her hand and looked again at the doves for sale. Closing the coin in her fist she gazed disconsolately at the ground, turned, a tear in her eye, and walked away. “Come back,” cried the merchant after her, “when you’ve enough to pay for your sins old woman!” Laughter. Business was good. Had it not been, he might have negotiated his price. He charged what the market would bear. That is, of course, the prudent thing.
Jesus stopped at the table of a merchant selling leather from the hide of camel. He purchased several strips three to four feet in length and something less than an inch in width. The leather was supple and strong. Next, he purchased a pouch of glass shards and then pieces of metal. These things could be purchased because it seems, business had a pervasive way of spreading itself beyond sacerdotal requirements. There was money to be made, and wherever this condition existed, greed found a way to be innovative.
Jesus found a shadowed corner of the temple. Taking his time, he wove one end of the strips of leather together into a respectable handgrip. Then he inserted the shards of glass and bits of metal into the loose-hanging leather strips. Completing his craft, he had constructed a Roman instrument for punishment called a “scourgewhip,” or “Scourge of leather cords.” Where had this man acquired knowledge of such a weapon? How did he know of it, much less the skill of making one? Did he actually intend to use this vicious appliance? If not, why go to the trouble?
With deliberation, he approached a moneychanger’s table. Jews from Asia, Rome, Greece and Egypt were trading in the temple that day. The coin of their realm needed conversion to local currency. At a profit, of course. The coins were spread by denomination and stacked. This merchant in money had a gleam in his eye. Looking up at Jesus, he did not see the whip. “May I help you, noble sir?” oozing. Only for an instant did he hesitate, then Jesus placed one foot on the table and bracing himself, shoved. The table fell into the merchants lap. Coin flew in all directions. Before anyone knew what Jesus was doing, children and standersby began snapping up coin pieces for themselves.
Quicker than collective awareness could follow, Jesus moved from table to table shoving and overturning. Where people stood in his way, merchant and buyer alike, he used his whip, laying backs bare and bleeding as shards and metal tore through clothing. Doves flapped away, sheep scattered, cattle jumped, lunged and bucked sending celebrants scurrying in every direction. Above the din and through it, feathers and debris flying, the roar of the Lion of Judah could be heard above the din, “Take these things out of here! Move! Now! How dare you turn my Father’s house of prayer into a lair for thieves and cheats!” Every door of the temple that led into the streets opened and people and animals poured through. In a few moments, it was over. The courtyard in the temple cleared.
It didn’t take long for the Jewish leadership to regroup. When they did they indignantly demanded of him, “What in the name of Beelzebub do you think you are doing young man? Who do you think you are? What credentials do you present that allows you to do this?” The anger and bravado masqueraded fear, Had the Romans sent him? He did not look Roman or as if in the employ of Romans. He appeared no different than the rest of them. No raiment of rank, no military contingent. Who indeed is this brash young hellion? Does he think himself a prophet? If so, does he perform miracles to support his credibility? “What miraculous sign to you offer that you possess such authority?” they whimpered as hyenas in the presence of the king of beasts.
Miracles! Legalists are very impressed by miracles. They look for miracles under their beds and in every event under heaven. They are titillated by miracles. Jesus surmised their intentions. They hated him for what he had done in the Temple. They wanted to destroy him. They would erect any pretext to accomplish this. I will give them a miracle! Jesus, sweating and dirty from combat, struck his chest with his fist with defiance and shouted, “Go ahead! Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
The Jews, for whom this boast was as enigmatic as the deed he had done replied, “This edifice was begun before you were born. Forty-six years in it’s building, and you are going to raise it in three days?” The looks of incredulity were matched only by sneers of scorn. They had no concept of what Jesus meant, or that he spoke not of Herod’s temple, but his own — the temple that is his body.
Tossing the whip into the dirt, Jesus turned away from his antagonists and began to walk away. There was no further point in this. While he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many people saw what he did and wanted to believe in him. The excesses of the temple marketplace had been long despised. This brash young man had done something most have wanted to do for years but were afraid of the legalists. Jesus placed little confidence in their admiration. He knew it would not last beyond the novelty of the moment. He knew all men. He did not need or listen to the opinions of men about other men. He himself knew human nature for what it was. He knew that one of the great weaknesses in human nature is greed and marketing is its exigency. Commerce is the way of man. It is not the way of God. It is secular, not sacred. Place it in the context of worship, and worship is defiled. Profiting and selling trinkets for use in faith, whether a sacrificial animal or a religious icon, does not please God. It is a means never justified by its ends.
A Roman soldier saw the whip lying unnoticed in the dirt. Idly, he walked over to it, eyed it for a moment, bent over and picked it up.
