PASTOR’S CORNER, Rev. Jason Toombs, Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, Liberal
Johnny’s mom was furious. She heard the report from her daughter, “Mom, Johnny has been causing a scene.” The mom rushed out of the Sunday School room into the Fellowship Hall and sees many women with exasperated looks on their faces. She sees the pastor running over to the Fellowship Hall, his alb blowing back due to the speed at which he runs. She rounds the corner and sees what the commotion is about.
Johnny has thrown the Bake Sale cash box against the wall, quarters still rolling and clanking on the tile floor. She looks as a few of the cupcakes are slowly sliding down the wall, the rest lay crumpled and crumbling. Cakes bits everywhere. Pies strewn like a food fight has just been launched at a summer camp. The blood starts rushing to her head, “Johnny!” she screams.
Patiently, calmly amid the chaos that he caused, Johnny asks, “Yes, mom. Why are you yelling?” Mom points any direction she chooses as the little hellion has caused another scene. “What is the meaning of this?”, she asks. Little Johnny, with tears now welling up in his eyes, sobs, “I was just doing what Jesus did. I’m sorry, but that’s the lesson we heard at church this morning.”
Instead of asking, “What Would Jesus Do?”, we should ask, “What Did Jesus Do?” and leave it at that. We are not Jesus, and all the anger that we produce is not near the righteous indignation that Jesus shows in overthrowing the moneychangers and driving away those who made the Father’s House a house of trade. Bake sales can be good fundraisers, but they are not the Law and the Gospel.
Or perhaps we need to refocus our ears onto the lesson once more, for what I have been talking about is another lesson for another day. Luke is not Matthew nor John, so we should not let their nuances invade the rest of the sermon this day. They can add additional details, but their focus is different.
Luke is the Gospel writer who desires to make an orderly account of the things which transpired. He centers his writing on the Ministry of Jesus and there are numerous times in his Gospel that Jesus is in the Temple.
The 40-day-old infant is brought into the Temple to be redeemed with a pair of turtledoves and Simeon and Anna bless the child and his mother. A 12-year-old Jesus is in the Father’s House, conversing with those learned in the Torah and explaining the way of the Lord fully to those who asked of Him anything. The devil takes Jesus and places Him on the pinnacle of the Temple and tells Him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here.”
Jesus gives a parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector in the Temple praying. He is in the Temple, cleansing it out and then teaching in the Temple as the people hang onto every word from His lips. He foretells of the Temple’s destruction, which is the reason the Council gives for sending Him before Pilate to be crucified. The curtain of the Temple which separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of it was torn from top to bottom as He is crucified. And He bids that the Disciples return to the Temple to offer up their blessings and prayers to God after He ascends into heaven.
The Temple is a special place in the life of Israel, just as it was a special place in the Ministry of Jesus. But the Temple is only a place and a placeholder. The Temple was the place where God required sacrifices to be given. And the prayers and offerings were given as well. The Temple was the place, but when the Person who is the True Temple of the LORD God came down and was crucified outside of the Temple, that placeholder need no longer stand.
Jesus is the True Temple of God as He comes to offer a better sacrifice, a once, for all, sacrifice as the Good Shepherd comes to be the Lamb of God as He sacrifices His Body and pours out His Blood to cover the sins of the people.
Each church can be a little House of Prayer where we can gather to worship the Lord in spirit and truth as we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We also hear the Word of the Lord as it endures forever and offer up our prayers to the God who hears.
