Signs

Signs

So the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?”

Last time we talked about Spring Cleaning. Jesus went into the temple and saw the money changers, and the people selling sacrificial animals taking advantage of everyone. These people had come to worship the Lord and instead they were getting ripped off like trying to buy Toilet Paper on eBay right now. Jesus has had enough of this! He makes a whip and starts flipping over tables and running everyone off. He then rebukes them saying “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise.”

Those in charge, likely the Pharisees/Sadducees look at Him and are like who are you? No one knew who Jesus was at this moment. This is the start to his public ministry. He shakes everything up.

March & April are usually the two busiest months of our year. Lucas and Sam have baseball. Report cards. Family birthdays & anniversaries. Then of course glorious Easter with all it’s many activities. Out of all our of normal Easter traditions I think I will miss the kids Easter celebration that would normally be this coming Saturday the most. It’s so much fun and full of energy. Every year for the message we have a no rehearsal Easter skit. I am the narrator and I pick several kids at random to play parts. Then they have to act out the scene as I read it to them. I change the scenes around each year and it never fails to amuse. More importantly though, it also gets the message across. Each year I have parents come up and talk to me about something they learned or realized from the skit. Faith like a child.

Yet, that’s not part of the plan for Easter 2020. While I will miss all these things that is not how God has chosen to move this year. We can get so caught up in tradition that we miss the purpose for the tradition. We get so attached to doing something a certain way that one that changes we lose all sense of purpose. Who knows how long the money changers had been there running their little side business? It’s safe to say that it was long established by this point.

I’m sure people had complained before. I imagine there was even a rookie Pharisee/Sadducee or two that tried to get it changed. Either they fell to the wayside, lost their job or started getting a cut of the profits. Yet, no one had once tried, much less successfully, put everything to a halt so suddenly.

Here was a nobody, a complete stranger, and now He has everyone’s attention. What sign do You show to us, since You do these things? This wasn’t necessarily a bad question. Anyone who drove the merchants out from the temple courts claimed the authority to do it. The Jews wanted to know if Jesus really had this authority. They ask for a sign, the word here is semeion. It can be translated as Sign, Miracle, Wonder or Token depending on the context.

They want something that authenticates His authority. After all you can’t have just anyone running up in the temple flipping everything over and yelling. Also, this man said something that peaked there interest He didn’t say “Do not make God’s House a House for merchants.” He said “Do not make My Father’s House a House for merchants.”  He’s already claimed His authority, right then, as the Son of God. They want a sign. If you’re acting for God, if you’re protecting God, and God is Your Father and You’re the Son of God, well give us a sign, some sign to indicate that you are who you say you are.

As always, Jesus never answers the way we want Him to answer.

¹⁹ Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Jesus could have easily performed all manner of miracles if He so willed. We also know that they would not have believed a single on of them. After all later when they witnessed all the miracles they couldn’t refute they attributed them to Satan not God. Jesus then tells them the future. Only God knows the future. Jesus tells them exactly what is going to happen. He says you guys are going to kill me and when you do I will rise from the grave in three days. His private ministry started with provision for His friends and family. His public ministry starts with the glory of the resurrection. Do our lives look like this? Both public and private for God’s glory?

²⁰ Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”

²¹ But He was speaking of the temple of His body. ²² Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this ^[d]to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.

Just a little bit of background--it’s not the Solomonic Temple; that was destroyed in 586 B.C. by the Babylonians. When the Israelites came back came back after 70 years of captivity, Haggai and Zechariah the prophets told the people who had come back to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple, they completed it in 519. It had been around a long time. It was pretty much in disarray. There was not much to it when Herod shows up 500 years later wanting to make a name for himself.  He then decides to start a huge government reconstruction project, that’s been going on for 46 years by this point.  Very pricey, lots of labor, way over budget. Which sounds exactly like a government construction project. In fact, it still wasn’t completed when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD by the Roman army.

Those opposed to Jesus intentionally twisted his words, mad fun of Him. This is going to be running theme in John and in the lives of those of us that proclaim the Hope of Easter to a lost and dying world. The disciples would not understand Jesus words either, at least not fully, until the very first Easter.

²³ Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. ²⁴ But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, ²⁵ and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.

Jesus knows our hearts. Jesus also knew not to place His faith in man specifically because of what is in our sinful hearts. Right now our hearts are fully of fear and anxiety. We are being forced to live our days one day at a time and some days 1 hour at a time. We are getting new and conflicting information every day. Don’t go to work but pay all your bills. Money is coming soon, maybe, unless it doesn’t. Wear a mask, just don’t buy any of them, while also supporting local businesses, which should be closed.

JD Greer ““While this situation is new, our calling has not changed. The gospel is still the most important message in the world, and we are still called upon to tell it. It is a gospel of love and faith, precisely what we need when society is filled with fear and uncertainty.””

For most of us there has not been a more unified worldwide hopeless time like there is right now. We are to celebrate Easter in just a few days. Just as Jesus started His public ministry with the Hope of Easter we too need to spend our time also sharing the Hope of Easter! Tell people that even though the foundations of the world are crumbling, there is a rock solid foundation to be found in Jesus Christ! Happy Easter everyone.