John 2:13-22 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple courts He found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at the tables exchanging money….How dare you turn My Father’s House into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: zeal for your house will consume me.”

Back when I was a principal I had interviewed hundreds of candidates for teaching positions. I like to share with two of the questions I asked towards the end of the interview. Questions that I listened to with extra attention because they spoke to ones vision. One was: “What does it mean to teach with passion?”…. I was looking for teachers that were passionate about the students’ learning; teachers that had a burning desire to see students learn, grow, and succeed; teachers who despaired over students who were failing and falling by the wayside.

In listening to the answers I discovered that there were teachers who were passionate about their teaching – “look at me” and others were passionate about their subject matter – “look at all I know.” As good as their answers might have been they were often a bit self-centered or off-target.

In our text today we hear of merchants whose passion has become misguided or off target. Jesus finds them in the outer courts of the temple not really helping others prepare for meaningful worship but bartering and clamoring for business. I’d believe they were passionate about what they were doing but their passion was off-target and self-centered.

Before we are too hard on them, how often are we off-target or self-centered. How many times have we come to church with our hearts ill-prepared or our minds elsewhere? How many times have we let our minds easily wander off while in worship? How many times have our offerings been ones gathered from the leftover dollars rather than with joyous tithes and offerings? How many times have we “done church” not as a time of renewal by God but as an act of obligation? How many times have we scooted out after church, skipping Bible study and fellowship, having done “our hour of power for God”? How many times have we minimized our sins or just tried to justify them? How many times are we passionately wrong about the things of God – massaging His Word to justify our misdeeds, or flat out ignoring it so we can continue in our sin?

Truly, we are a passionate people but we are often passionately sinful. James writes: After (sinful) desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin when it is full-grown gives birth to death. (1.15) Anyone who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it sins. (4.4) St. Paul writes: The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law. (Rms 8.7a) Passionate as we are, we are often off-target and self-centered.

Into the temple courts, into the middle of this gone awry selling of animals and money-changing, into our misguided passion comes Jesus. Jesus comes with a “zeal”; He comes with a passion, a proper passion. Remember in my question I asked what does it mean to teach with passion. Well, the answer I was listening for was a teacher who was passionate about the learners, passionate about them learning and growing. Passion for teaching is good but passion for the learner is better!

Jesus comes with a passion for saving sinners. He comes with a passion to save the lost, a passion for them, a passion for all of us so great that He was willing to fight His way to the cross for us. We see this passion played out as he lays down His life for us. He who knew no sin became sin for us. (2 Cor 5.21) He became for us the ultimate lamb of sacrifice. Truly, He was as John declared the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. (Jn 1.29) Of the cross the Psalmist writes: For I (he is referring to Jesus) endured scorn for your sake, and shame covers My face. I am a stranger to My brothers, an alien to my own mother’s sons; for zeal for My house consumes Me, and insults of those who insult you fall on Me. (Ps 69.7-9)

The principle is this: when someone sins that which is innocent has to die to cover up that sin. God declared that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Heb 9.22) This we exclaim, “is unfair!” And it is, but sadly sin, all those misguided passions of ours, come with a terrible price: something innocent must die, pour out its life’s blood to pay for, atone for, cover up, to wash away our sins. All the sacrifices of the Old Testament were but preparation for the one True Sacrifice that Jesus would make: pouring out His life’s blood for us – the innocent Son of God dying for the sins of man, dying for your sins and mine. By his wounds we are healed. We are forgiven!

Our text tells that Jesus created chaos in the temple courts driving out both man and beast. He lays down a challenge to the temple authorities claiming this House, this Temple, to be His Father’s house. To make such a claim is to claim to be the Messiah. To this the Jews demanded of Him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do this?”

What sign can I provide: the deaf will hear, the paralyzed will walk, the blind will see, the lepers will be cleansed, the dead raised, and the forgiveness of sins will be preached to those who repent? You’d think that this would be enough, but it was never enough. Time and time again they would say, we’ve seen You do this and that but what other miracle will you do that we might believe. Sadly, unbelief demands a sign not that it might believe but that it might be argued against, explained away, denied, or rejected. Paul writes in our Corinthian’s passage: Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom.

Whenever I hear this passage I am reminded of the time an unbeliever asked me to prove that My God existed. My immediate thought was that he must be Greek and I will reason with him, but instead I asked, “What proof would you accept?” So, he must be a Jew looking for a sign.

He pondered for a moment and said, “Call down fire on this spot right now and I will believe.”

Oh, trust me I wished I could have, but even if I had it wouldn’t have created a lasting faith. Faith would come to him not by a flashy show. It might get His attention but, Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. (Rms 10.17) Faith for this man would come by his being brought face to face with the love of God for him. A love so great that Jesus died for him even while he was still grossly and defiantly sinning against God.

As for wisdom, God has made foolish the wisdom of this age. A wisdom that would seek salvation by good works and the foolish notion that sin isn’t that serious. Look to the cross! Look to the cross! Sin is so serious and deadly that it would take the death of His Son to save us from it. All our good works would not build a tower tall enough to reach heaven. Oh, the cross may look foolish enough to those who are perishing but to those who have been brought to faith it is the justice of God. It is, also, the mercy and grace of God, grace and mercy that come to us by the hearing of His Word and through His Sacraments.

As for miracles I will give you one, says Jesus. Destroy this Temple, and I will rise It again in three days…the temple He was speaking of was not the temple that took forty-six years to rebuild but the raising again to life the One who died for the sins of whole world. (Jn 2.18-21)

If you remember when I started this sermon I told you there were two questions. The first one was: “What does it mean to teach with passion?” The second one was: “Imagine you get this job and it is now six weeks into the school year. I decide to come down and visit your classroom; what most likely will I hear even before I get there? What will I see, “taste” if you will, and sense as I enter your room? What will the students’ most likely be doing? What will you most likely be doing? As an artist uses paints to create a picture, use your words to paint me a picture of you, your students and your room.

What I was listening for in this question was the candidate’s “vision” of what their passion would look like. The more specific the description was the more likely it was to happen.

What if I asked you: “We have been freely given great gifts: forgiveness, life and salvation along with adoption into God’s family, an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit and declaration by Jesus to intercede with the Father for us. How might these gifts impact how we live? What would a body of believers look like, act like, and outreach like if they were passionate about all that Christ had freely and graciously done for them?”

The early church gives us powerful examples of how we might live: Bereans who were daily in the Word; in the book of Acts we find people gladly gathered in fellowship, ministering to the needs of each other; we hear of the likes of St Paul adapting to the culture, setting aside his Jewish upbringing, getting out of his comfort zone- being all things to all people - in order that the Gentiles might hear the Gospel.

As Lutherans we are sometimes referred to as the “frozen chosen.” I believe, with a passion, it time for us to “thaw out”. It is time for us to live with a zeal for Christ, to outreach with a passion to those around us who apart from the cross are perishing. How might we live if we were serious about “bringing Christ to our communities and our communities to Christ”?

As an artist uses a brush to paint a picture, I challenge each of you to be in prayer to ask God how He might have each of us live out our faith; We are challenged by the Great Commission of Christ, go and make disciples of all nations, to not just do what can we do to maintain our faith and this church, but by working of the Holy Spirit in us to share the message of the cross and the empty tomb not just with those in this place but with those around us. Let us go and bring Christ to our communities and our communities to Christ.

Amen