WEEK TWO INTRODUCTION 
TITLE: THE MISUNDERSTOOD MESSIAH (JOHN 2:12–John 5)
February 26–March 4

Jesus came to earth as the Messiah (the Anointed One) but was rejected by his own people (John 1:11). During his public ministry, thousands came to hear him preach, witness the miracles he performed, and watch him heal the sick. But few answered the call to become his disciples or worship him. At one point Jesus asked his disciples, “And are you too wanting to go away?” (John 6:67). To most common Israelites, Christ was nothing more than a great teacher or curious wonder-worker.

The Jews were looking for a Messiah who they believed would overthrow the tyrannical Roman government and usher in a golden age with a restored Jewish kingdom. Yet they failed to recognize the very Messiah they were longing for. Although Jesus did not go around broadcasting that he was the Christ, on the occasions he tried to have deep conversations about who he was, he was generally misunderstood. Christ would perform a miracle or make a claim about himself, then people would be confused or get angry. At some point in each encounter, participants in the drama were forced to make a decision regarding who Jesus was. 

“Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days” was a veiled and confusing pronouncement by Christ regarding his impending death and resurrection (John 2). Nicodemus was unable to comprehend what Christ meant by being “born again.” “How on earth can things like this happen?” he asks (Chapter 3). Likewise, the Samaritan woman was confused by Christ’s offer of living water, “You have nothing to draw water with and this well is deep.” But when the woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming,” Jesus revealed himself to her, “I am Christ speaking to you now.” (John 4). 

The most vicious attacks and blind misunderstandings occurred when Christ referred to his relationship with God as his Father. In the book of John, Jesus refers to God as his Father one hundred and seven times. Musician Michael Card has created a recording for each of the four Gospels. The title of his album dealing with John’s Gospel is John: A Misunderstood Messiah. Card writes, “As [John’s] Gospel progresses, Jesus becomes increasingly lonely until finally, on the cross, he is all alone. His luminous answers were all misunderstood. They will finally be comprehended only at the coming of the Holy Spirit (John 12:16; 14:25).”

Day 5 - Sunday, February 26
Title: DESTROY THIS TEMPLE AND I’LL REBUILD IT IN THREE DAYS
Scripture: John 2:12–25
After this incident, Jesus, accompanied by his mother, his brothers and his disciples, went down to Capernaum and stayed there a few days. The Jewish Passover was approaching and Jesus made the journey up to Jerusalem. In the Temple he discovered cattle and sheep dealers and pigeon-sellers, as well as money-changers sitting at their tables. So he made a rough whip out of rope and drove the whole lot of them, sheep and cattle as well, out of the Temple. He sent the coins of the money-changers flying and turned their tables upside down. Then he said to the pigeon-dealers, “Take those things out of here. Don’t you dare turn my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered the scripture—‘Zeal for your house has eaten me up’

As a result of this, the Jews said to him, “What sign can you give us to justify what you are doing?”

“Destroy this temple,” Jesus retorted, “and I will rebuild it in three days!”

To which the Jews replied, “This Temple took forty-six years to build, and you are going to rebuild it in three days?”

He was, in fact, speaking about the temple of his own body, and when he was raised from the dead the disciples remembered what he had said to them and that made them believe both the scripture and what Jesus had said.

While he was in Jerusalem at Passover-time, during the festivities many believed in him as they saw the signs that he gave. But Jesus, on his side, did not trust himself to them—for he knew them all. He did not need anyone to tell him what people were like: he understood human nature.

Poetry & Poet:
“Psalm and Lament for Los Angeles, Pt. II”
by Dana Gioia

If I forget you, Los Angeles, let my eyes burn
In the smoggy crimson of your sunsets.

If I prefer not the Queen of the Angels to other cities,
Then close my ears to the beat of your tides.

Let me stand on the piers of Malibu, blind
To the dances of the surfers and the dolphins.

But, O Los Angeles, you dash your children against the
     stones.
You devour your natives and your immigrants.

You destroy your father’s house. You sell your
     daughters to strangers.
You sprawl in the carnage and count the spoils.

You stretch naked in the sunlight, beautiful and
     obscene—
So enormous, hungry, and impossible to pardon.

DESTROY THIS TEMPLE AND I’LL REBUILD IT IN THREE DAYS

Today’s Scripture presents us with a rare event—Jesus loses his cool.  And his anger here seems so, well, human.  He “discovers” people selling animals and changing money in the temple, and the sudden rise of his fury comes across—as mine often does—as so reactionary.  He makes a whip from rope and starts flipping tables—urgent actions of an anger that won’t wait.  John makes a point of drawing our attention to this zeal, but he also balances this moment in which Jesus “sees red” by setting it against the spiritual blindness of those around Him.  Even as Jesus rebukes the casual greed desecrating the temple, He also confronts the larger spiritual poverty and destitution in Jerusalem.  Jesus perceives the individuals of the temple, the city, all of human nature, and his own self with perfect clarity.  John’s account invites me—as does the season of Lent—to sober clarity; to reflect on the state of my heart and its affections.           

The vendors and money lenders have settled into familiar routines of commerce built around the temple, and material gain masquerades as (or replaces) reverence.  And even as the merchants blithely dismiss any possible conflict between their actions and the temple’s sacramental nature, they simultaneously boast in its material glory as a building which took nearly fifty years to build.  The spiritual blindness here is particularly vexing because it’s not a “darkness” of pure ignorance, but of corrupted vision and misplaced priorities.  There’s a certain pride reflected in rebuffing Jesus with the temple’s age and construction quality even as they take the temple’s value for granted, assuming their enterprises are perfectly compatible with the temple’s purpose.          

Dana Gioia’s poem offers a modern take on this problem, updating Psalm 137 to newer cultures and geographies.  Gioia is a native of the Los Angeles area, and the poem sparkles with genuine affection and extols sunsets, piers, and dolphins, even as these features are blurred by smog.  But the smog doesn’t obscure Gioia’s canny, unrelenting vision of Los Angeles’ depravity.  The last lines especially are haunting, addressing the personified city: “You stretch naked in the sunlight, beautiful and obscene/…impossible to pardon.”  The imagery combines blissful cluelessness with monstrous carnality and destructive appetite.  This exhibitionist flaunting stands in such contrast to Buoneri’s portrait of Christ.  Almost as if his perfect vision of our race were, for a moment, too much to behold, Jesus closes his eyes and inclines his head.  Yet surrounded by our darkness, Christ nevertheless reaches out in a gesture of embrace.  And below the shadow of his lifted arm, we see the spear’s wound.  This wounded, nearly naked Christ—who saw Jerusalem, who sees Los Angeles, who sees me—is the same that cleared the temple courts.           

Jesus comes, and He means to clean house—to consecrate those things that are his.  He confronts me with things I don’t want to know; truths I struggle to hear or acknowledge.  Like the merchants, I don’t want my life thrown into chaos or upended.  But there is more than justice in the hand that raises the whip of correction.  Christ comes not merely to drive me away, or drive me out, but to offer me new life.  When Jesus declares “Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days” he offers new life, healthy desire, and eternal blessing—things I cannot find anywhere else; neither in the courts of the temple nor the piers of Malibu.

Prayer:
Lord Christ,
You see to the truth of me; you see the heart that is deceitful and wicked. 
I sometimes wish You would overlook its clutching sinfulness.
And I sometimes pretend you can’t see,
or that you’re not paying attention.
But I acknowledge that you are right about my dreadful, broken neediness. 
Help me to see and acknowledge the ways that, all too often, my actions, beliefs,
and relationships betray the assumption that your church and your world
are ultimately meant to serve my purposes and appetites. 
Show me the ways that I resist your work, choosing instead
to be led by old habits that flatter my strengths and inclinations,
presuming I’m being led by your Spirit. 
Lead me, instead, with You to the cross, so that this heart of darkness
may die and be made new, pure, and whole.
Amen.

Dr. Phillip Aijian
Adjunct Professor
Torrey Honors College
Biola University

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