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John 2:13-25

A Sign for All Times©

            One of the wonders of the Mid-East is their bazaars.  I expect every middle-sized or large city in the Mid-East has a bazaar.  Bazaars are places where the vendors of everything you would ever need sell their wares.

·        If you need bread or fish or veggies

·        If you need kitchenware or bedding or carpet

·        If you need shoes or clothes or yardage

·        If you need furnishings of any kind

·        If you need a bite to eat or twenty-four carat bracelets or meerschaum pipes you can find them at the bazaar.

            Bazaars are made up primarily of vendors with pushcarts, standing under large canopies.  There are some actual streets, waling streets, on which more permanent businesses stand.  The jewelry vendors are all on a very long street.  Each jeweler has a large window in front with tall stacks of gold bracelets standing high and blazing gold from very bright lights.  You can quickly find your way to the jewelry lane by their bright lights.

            It is quite easy to get lost in the bazaar.  When Dave and I would visit Konac, the bazaar in Izmir, we quickly learned to add an extra hour to the trip for getting lost and then found again. 

            Two things you could count on at the bazaar—noise and smell.  Both were strong.  The smell came from the fish.  The noise came from everywhere.  Such is a market place in the Mid-East.  It would be hard to get tired of such a place, but it is hardly a place where you could find peace or a place to pray.  It was far from being anything like a place of prayer.

            Jesus had come to Jerusalem with his disciples for Passover.  Of course they went to the Temple to pray, but when they got there it looked much like a market! 

            The Temple in Jerusalem was a very large building, really a series of buildings.  It consisted of the Temple itself and was surrounded by outer courts, concentrically built.   The outside court was open to Gentiles—anyone could come there.  Inside that was the court of the women. The Jewish women went there to pray, but they could not enter any deeper into the Temple.  Inside the women’s court lay the court of the men, where all Jewish men were permitted to come.  Finally, came the sacred Temple area where the priests officiated, where offerings were made daily for the people.

            Every Jewish man was responsible to pay a yearly Temple tax that was about two-day’s wages.  This tax had to be made in coinage that could be paid at the Temple.  Many coins of the day bore the image of some king or the emperor, and they were unacceptable to be used in the Temple.   Money changers were necessary for the worshipers to obtain the right coins for the tax.

            People came to Jerusalem during the Holy Days of Passover to give offerings and sacrifices in the Temple.   They needed to buy animals—birds, sheep, and cattle for the sacrifices.  So many animal vendors with their victims kept shop in the court of the gentiles.

            When Jesus arrived at the Temple there was a terrible commotion taking place.  Mind you, there was not a full-fledged bazaar in the Temple.  The fish were missing and many businesses, but St. John tells us that the atmosphere and the sounds around the Temple very much resembled a market place.

            When Jesus saw that many vendors and merchants had moved into the Temple and how it had changed from being a house of prayer to something resembling the bazaar, Jesus acted.  He quickly fashioned a whip from some cords and began to drive the animals out of the Temple.  Then he overturned the tables of the moneychangers, tossing coins everywhere.  He yelled at those selling birds, ‘Remove these creatures at once!  Stop making my Father’s house a place of commerce!’

 It must have been shocking, seeing this man from Galilee angrily throwing tables over, scattering coins all around, snapping a whip at animals to move them toward the gate.  Jesus was everywhere at once, it seemed.  People didn’t expect any such disruptions and were amazed.

The Jews didn’t know how to respond.  Clearly this man had a purpose in his actions.  He was not actually harming anybody; he was just trying to remove the vendors from the Temple.  But why was he doing this?  And, better yet, who gave him the authority to do it?

After things had settled down a bit, some of the Jews approached Jesus and asked him to explain himself.  They asked, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ (John 2:18)

            These days we’ve had our share of watching the signs of the times.  There have been some days when we have been glued to our television sets, watching moment by moment as the stock market plunged heavily; or the various bailouts that have been called by the president, hoping to stop the collapse of our economy.  There are so many signs. 

            Medical people have put out information about signs we need to watch for—shortness of breath; pain in the left arm; difficulty swallowing; a lump somewhere inside-- might be signs that we should see the doctor.

            Signs are sometimes the very first indication of something that’s changing.  When I watched Good

            The Jews wanted some sort of proof of authority from Jesus.  They knew that the prophets of old occasionally did bizarre things to bring God’s message to the people.  The prophets had authority from ON HIGH.

            No one understood Jesus’ answer until much later.         

            He said, ‘Destroy the Temple and in three days I will build it up.’

            Three days?  What was he talking about?  There is no way anyone could rebuild the Temple in three days.  King Herod had been rebuilding their Temple for forty-six years, and it was not yet complete.  Three days to rebuild it?  Humbug!

            The Jews walked away, shaking their heads. Was Jesus out of his mind?  What would cause someone to act and speak so strangely?

            John tells us that it wasn’t until later that the disciples remembered Jesus’ words that day and realized what he meant by them.

            What did Jesus mean by the ‘sign’?

            In the synoptic gospels we hear about the sign a little differently.  It’s the same sign, but it is not obvious that it is the same sign.  You have to think about it.       

            Both Matthew and Luke write about a time when the people asked Jesus for a sign.  In those stories Jesus said there would be no sign except for one, the sign of Jonah.  The sign of Jonah?

            We remember the story of Jonah from our time in Sunday school. Jonah was the man God told to go to Nineveh to prophecy to the people there and tell them to repent.  Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh.  He knew how terrible the Ninevites were, and he also knew that if they repented God would be merciful on them.  So, Jonah ran away, actually he sailed away.  He got on a ship headed into the Mediterranean to get as far away from where God wanted him to go as possible.

            The ship Jonah took ran into a terrible storm and was nearly lost.  Jonah knew he was to blame for the storm, because he had disobeyed God, so he told his shipmates to throw him overboard.  They did, and a great fish came by and swallowed Jonah whole and took him to safety.  When Jonah was finally back on land, he went to Nineveh and prophesied, calling the people to repentance. 

            Did you see the sign in the story?  Did you see the sign Jesus was talking about?

            ‘Destroy this Temple and in three day I will raise it up.’  Jonah lived in the belly of the great fish for three days before he was delivered to the safety of the shore.

            Three days. That was the sign Jesus was talking about.  He would be in the belly of the earth for three days, and then he would rise.  He would rise from the dead.

            The sign is all about Jesus’ death and resurrection.  His answer to the Jews was that they would destroy the temple, his body, the Temple of God, and on the third day he would rise up and live again.

What a sign!  If that would happen, it would be the only time in the history of humankind that any person has ever been resurrected.

 The sign Jesus foretold was the perfect answer to the Jew’s question of authority.  His resurrection from the dead showed the world Jesus’ authority.  He had been approved by his Father in Heaven; his resurrection showed us that.

When Jesus met the eleven disciples on the mount in Galilee just before he ascended into Heaven, he greeting them with these words, “All authority, in heaven and on earth, has been given to me.” (Matt 28:18)

 Jesus has the authority that the Jews were asking about.

We can understand what Jesus meant by the sign he foretold—that he would die and rise again in three days. But how is that a Sign for All Times?  How is Jesus’ sign something important for us today?

The sign is Jesus rising from the dead. We celebrate Jesus’ sign because it spells out resurrection for us.  In Jesus we have new life, new possibilities. Even when we find that our lives have been badly messed up, we can find help and hope and new beginnings in Jesus. 

The Christian faith is different from all other faiths in this world because of the person of Jesus.  Certainly Christianity has roots in the Jewish faith, but it grew out and beyond the Jewish faith. 

Faith in Christ is for all people of every position in life—gentile and Jew; slave and free; male and female, as Paul tells us. (Gal 3:28)

 Faith in the resurrected Christ means that one day we, too, will have resurrected bodies, like he has.  But before that in this world today we also have the comfort and joy of knowing that we can experience Christ working in our lives each day. 

Resurrection, of course, is all about new life, new starts. 

Life has a way of happening that sometimes causes us to be in very disturbing situations. 

·        We’re suddenly in the hospital room awaiting the doctor’s verdict.

·        We’re suddenly without a job or a home, maybe some relationship has gone awry 

·        We’re suddenly in the midst of some trouble and pain. 

·        We are, for the moment, in the belly of the whale. 

·        We are in pain, and we feel quite unable to cope or do anything about our world.

Stuff happens, and we find ourselves in a disturbing place, a place of disequilibrium.  When that happens we need to hold on to our faith in Christ.  We need to remember St. Paul’s words, ‘All things work together for good to those who love the LORD, who are called according to his purpose.’  (Rom 8:28)

Jesus’ sign is a sign for all of us and A Sign for All Times.  Jesus’ sign is the sign of the cross. In fact it’s the empty cross, because it shows that he also rose.  The cross reminds us immediately that Jesus suffered and died on that horrible tree, but he also rose.  He is not still on the cross, suffering, but he went to the cross for us, for our sins, so that we can be re-established with the Father as God’s children.

Jesus’ sign is a Sign for All Times because Jesus’ sign is a symbol of who Jesus is and what he did for us and continues to do for us every day.

Jesus’ sign is a Sign for All Times. It is there to remind us that the signs that we receive every day—good signs and bad signs—are not all there is for us.  Jesus’ sign is there to call us to come to Him; to follow Him; to trust Him to be with us and act for us as we follow him.

Copyright © 2009 Marjorie Palmer. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this writing may be reproduced in any form without specific, written permission of the author.

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