Reader’s Guide: “The Word for Today” Tuesday, January 14, 2014 Read John 2:13-22 John’s placement of the episode of Jesus cleansing the Temple in Jerusalem at this early point of his gospel presents us with a challenge. Mark, Matthew, and Luke place this episode near the very end of their gospels. For them, this episode is really the straw that broke the camel’s back and leads to Jesus arrest and crucifixion. As we read their gospels, especially Mark’s gospel, it would have been impossible for Jesus to have cleansed the Temple at any other time than at the end of his ministry when he entered Jerusalem for the one and only time. It does no good to try to claim that Jesus must have cleansed the Temple twice. Mark’s storyline does not allow it. Once again, attempting to solve this challenge by claiming that the event happened twice has more to do with an attempt to justify a particular point of view regarding scripture interpretation than it does with really listen to the story we find in the Bible. So, we are going to have to face this challenge by attempting to answer the question of why John chose to put this story in this place in his gospel – probably knowing very well that historically the event happened much later near then end of Jesus’ story. As is evident, it is my opinion that the synoptic gospels are “historically” correct – John is not. So why might John have moved this story to this point in his gospel? John tells his readers of three Passover. Mark, Matthew and Luke speak of only one. One of the distinct features of John’s gospel is that Jesus spends considerably more time in Judea and in Jerusalem than in the synoptic gospels. As we have already observed, in them Jesus makes only one visit to Jerusalem during his ministry. Yet, even the synoptic gospels at times hint that Jesus may well have been acquainted with Jerusalem before his final arrival. More on that later. At any rate it seems likely that John is reflecting historical reality when he extends the ministry of Jesus beyond the short time period that is implied by Mark and followed by Matthew and Luke. It is from John, after all, that the church has come to believe that Jesus’ ministry lasted for at least three years. If John is reflecting historical reality more closely by reporting a ministry of about three years, he has no trouble moving the cleansing story to an earlier visit – perhaps because there was no notable event to report during this first visit. That is a rather weak reason – there are others which are more compelling. We have already observed that John has spoken of Jesus as the Lamb of God – the Passover Lamb and made the claim that Jesus replaces the Passover Lamb. Passover, as we will observe, was very important to John and to John’s community. That Jesus should confront the injustice and bankrupt nature of the Temple during Passover would only highlight this connection. At the next Passover, John will argue that Jesus replaces the Passover itself – he is the Bread of Life! Now, during this first Passover Jesus confronts the perversion of the Temple and replaces the Temple with his own body. By the time the book of John was likely completed the Temple in Jerusalem has long been laying in ruins destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. The Temple no longer functioned. The destruction of the Temple in 70 AD was a real problem both for Jews and for Jewish Christians. But it was no problem for John and for John’s community because Jesus had already replaced the Temple – he did it early in his ministry. That is John’s point. In the next few days we are going to look at how each of the gospel writers uses this story. There are many things they share in common. John’s story is not much different from the others – closer than John is to many other stories he shares with them. But there are subtle differences too and it is in hearing those differences that we come to understand more fully.