Pentecost II (Proper 4 B) [Mark 2:23-3:6] (3-Jun-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.

Prayer: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Today in our reading, we have a very important passage, which speaks of two events where the Pharisees accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath. The first part of the reading is where Jesus and the disciples were plucking grain and the second is where Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath.

Now this reading actually has many very important things in it, and many things that are very relevant for today.

The first thing that we’re going to talk about is what we call law and gospel. In our reading today, Jesus and his disciples are accused of breaking the law. The Pharisees say: Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? The whole of the Scripture can be divided up into two basic doctrines or teaching: the law, and the Gospel. Both the Law of God and the Gospel are God’s eternal perfect word. The law teaches us what we should do, and what we shouldn’t do. The law threatens punishment for those who break the law, and the law promises rewards for those who keep the law. But we human beings are sinners, and we are unable to keep the law perfectly. And so the law also shows us God’s wrath and judgment against sin. Jesus says: You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. He says: Truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever relaxes one the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. James writes: Whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. The law doesn’t make sinners, but it finds sinners and exposes them, and shows us who we really are.

Now, on the other hand, there is also in the bible another teaching or doctrine, which is called the Gospel. The Gospel teaches us not what we should do or what we shouldn’t do, but points us to Jesus and what he has done for us. Jesus entered into the world, he suffered, and died, and he took the weight of every single one of our sins and failures and weaknesses upon himself, upon his own shoulders, and he made a complete and perfect payment, and sacrifice, and atonement for every single one of our sins, and for our entire sinful condition. And he defeated the power of death by rising from the dead on Easter Sunday. And this word of the Gospel is spoken on earth in the church to us right in the midst of this life, in holy baptism, in the Lord’s Supper, in the words of absolution or the forgiveness of sins spoken by the pastor, in the pulpit when pastors preach the gospel, and in all of our Christian conversations where we encourage each other and speak the message of Christ to one another wherever God places us. This Gospel is received by us completely without any works, without any contributions on our part whatsoever, and is given to us completely and totally freely. The Gospel doesn’t find saints, but it makes people saints through the word of the forgiveness of sins. When God looks at us, he sees all of our sins covered over by the righteousness of his Son.

Now, when we talk about Law and Gospel, we’re not talking about the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament has both Law and Gospel in it, and the New Testament has both Law and Gospel in it. But also, Law and Gospel is not “nasty talk” versus “nice talk”. When we say that we should love another, that’s nice, but it’s law—it’s not Gospel. The fact that Jesus has shown his love to us by dying and rising for us to give us eternal life—that’s Gospel, not law. But the death of Jesus is nasty stuff, it’s not very nice, but it saves us.

Now, I’d like to come back to the law. There are three things that the law does. Firstly, God gives his law for the well-being of human society. The law stops the world from being completely crazy and falling apart. People know that they shouldn’t steal, shouldn’t lie. They sip their hot drinks, or they will burn their tongues. They drive on the appointed side of the road or they will have a car crash. This is just the rules, it’s the way the world works.

But also, God’s law shows us our sin and it accuses us. The law is like a mirror, and we look into it and we see where we have failed. The law shows us our need for forgiveness.

And also, God’s law is a guide for our Christian lives. It shows us how we should live as Christians, and what the Holy Spirit’s will is for our lives.

So we have these three ways in which the law works. Sometimes we call them the three uses of the law: for the well-being of society, to show us our sin, and to guide us in our Christian life.

Now, in the Old Testament, we read about Moses going up to meet God on the top of Mt Sinai and God gives him the Ten Commandments. Now, if you’ve read the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, you’ll find there a lot of laws that we no longer keep today, for example, laws about sacrifices, about what to eat, and all kinds of laws about worship, and so on. And we might think: “I thought, Jesus said that not one dot will pass from the law. Why don’t we do those things anymore?” The reason is this: when Jesus came, and when he died, and rose, and sent the Holy Spirit, there were many things that were no longer applicable or needed. For example, we don’t sacrifice lambs and bulls and goats anymore in a temple, because Jesus sacrificed himself as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

It’s a bit like someone who keeps all their food in a small esky. If they are keeping food in an esky, there are certain laws they have to keep in order for the food to be fresh. For example, they will have to go and buy some more ice regularly and replace it every day, otherwise everything will get warm and wet. But then the person buys a fridge, and so they just don’t need to buy some ice every day to keep their food cold. He has something better than an esky now, he has a fridge! In a similar way, when we say that those old Jewish laws are no longer needed, it’s not that we don’t care about the law, it’s just that Jesus has fulfilled the law, and he has given us something better.

And so in the Old Testament, there are two types of laws: there are laws about ceremonies, or ceremonial law, and there are laws about how we should live, or moral law. So all the things about eating, and worship, and sacrificing, are called “ceremonial laws”, and we Christians don’t follow these laws anymore, because they are not needed. But then there are also moral laws, like honouring parents, not murdering, not committing adultery, not stealing, not lying – these things are about what right and what’s wrong. And as Christians, we should seek to do things that are right.

An example of this for today is homosexuality. People often say that Christians are hypocrites because on one hand the Old Testament says that a man may not lie with a man as with a woman, but it also says that people shouldn’t wear clothes with both wool and linen in them. The first law is moral—it has to do with right and wrong—and the second law is ceremonial—it has to do with the distinctiveness of the Jewish people. And so the New Testament also forbids homosexual acts, but the apostles don’t forbid clothes with mixed cloth!

So, we’ve talked about law and Gospel—how God shows us our sin through the law, and also shows us our Saviour Jesus in the Gospel. We’ve talked about the three ways in which the law works: the law gives order to society, it shows us our sin, and gives us a guide for our Christian life. And also, we’ve talked about the difference in the Old Testament between “moral” and “ceremonial” laws, between the laws which have to do with right and wrong, and the laws which have to do with Jewish worship.

All this is very important when we’re looking at our reading today, because Jesus is accused of breaking the laws of worship, the laws concerning the Sabbath.

Now, in the 10 Commandments, we have a commandment there about the Sabbath. This is the third commandment, which says: Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. In Exodus it says: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Now in the Old Testament, the Sabbath day is Saturday. Saturday is the seventh day of the week. And today, most Christians don’t worship on Saturdays, but they worship on Sundays instead. And we might look at this commandment, and ask, “Why don’t we keep it anymore?” Well, the answer is, that the commandment does apply still, in that it is part of God’s law that we should come together and worship God and hear the word of God. But the command that we are still required to hold to the particular day is part of the Jewish ceremonial law. We don’t worship on Sundays because God said we have to worship on Sundays—we do it out of freedom, as a commemoration of the day when Jesus rose from the dead. So we see in Act 20, that the disciples gathered on the first day of the week to break bread. The first day of the week in Sunday. And also when there was a dispute about these things in the early times, Paul wrote to the Colossians: Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

So Luther writes in the Small Catechism and explanation of this commandment about the Sabbath, where it says: We should fear and love God so that we do not despise preaching and his word, but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it. The reason why the Jewish people had to keep the Sabbath and not work, was so that they could worship and hear God’s word and the preaching of God’s word. And so, now that there is no need to keep the Saturday, it is still required of us as Christians to come together, hear the preaching and the word, and learn it. So in Hebrews it says: Do not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Today, the Seventh Day Adventists insist that Christians still have to worship on Saturdays. But then also they feel a need to keep other old ceremonial laws, like not eating pork, and shellfish, just like the Jews, and then there is no end to keeping all these various laws. We believe that the Jewish food regulations, the observance of Saturday, the sacrifices, circumcision, all belong to the ceremonies of the Jewish people before the Holy Spirit came. But now that Jesus had risen from the dead and poured out the Holy Spirit on the church, there is no need for the old ceremonial laws.

In our reading, the Pharisees accuse the disciples and Jesus of doing work on the Sabbath, because it says that on the Sabbath they should do no work, like they do on the other six days of the week. But then the Pharisees—and many Jews even today—get very fussy about what is defined as “work”. So, for example, in Israel, the regular elevators don’t work in building on Saturdays, because it involves the use of electricity. Some Jews won’t turn on a light switch on Saturday. And in our reading, the disciples were hungry and decided to pick some grain, and rub it between their hands, because they were hungry. But the Pharisees all of sudden see red, as if they have a little alarm goes off, that says: Work! Work! Work! Even in the reading, Jesus was about to heal a person. And the Pharisees’ alarm goes off, which says: Work! Work! Work!

But Jesus points out to them that when it comes to needing to eat and drink, there is still a certain amount of work that we need to do. Every day, we still need to cook food, and wash the dishes. Jesus says: Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how they entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him? The Sabbath laws don’t mean that we should starve, and not eat. Also, when it comes to helping people, like when Jesus healed the man in the synagogue, you don’t need to wait until the Sabbath is over. In old times, many Christians often went visiting on Sundays, which is a good thing. It requires some work to go down the street or get in your car, but they are doing something nice for people. Jesus says that if they had a animal in a well on the Sabbath, they would have to fetch it out and rescue it. That requires work, but the job needs to be done, otherwise the animal would die. We pastors do our biggest work on Sundays, as did the Rabbis and priests on Saturdays in the Jewish times. Some people think we pastors only work on Sundays, and have six days off!

In one of my previous parishes, there was a dairy farmer who lived near a highway. A couple of times, his cows ended up on the road on Sunday, and he had to go and get them all. But he was very apologetic about not being at church. But as we see in this passage, sometimes even on Sunday, when it’s time for church, there are some emergency things that just need to be done.

The other thing we need to realise about the Pharisees is that they were trying to be very diligent in keeping the law. And that is a good thing. But then they started to be so particular, that they then thought that helping someone or even eating some grain was breaking the Sabbath. The reason for not working on the Sabbath, was so that they could hear the word of God. It wasn’t so that people would turn to statues on one day of the week. Sometimes Christians have fallen into this kind of legalistic thinking too. At one time, there was a dancing craze that started up, and back in those days, dancing was just about the only occasion when a man or woman would physically touch someone else’s husband or wife. And sometimes, there were some affairs, and scandals, that came about because of it. But then some Christians began to forbid all dancing, including some Lutherans. They went over the top. In some times and places, there have big problems with alcoholism and drinking. But then some Christians have forbidden all drinking of alcohol, as if drinking alcohol is a sin. But it’s not. Jesus himself even turned water into wine at a wedding.

Now in our reading, Jesus says: The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath. Here we see that there is a wonderful gift in keeping the Sabbath day. Going to the synagogue or the church to hear the word of God is not a burden, but it’s a wonderful blessing. It’s a joy—it’s a privilege. The word of God saves us, and feeds us, and strengthens us. This is what it means when Jesus says: The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

But then Jesus also says: The Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath. All throughout Jesus’ life, Jesus kept the normal laws of the Jewish people, like everyone else, even though he didn’t need to. He did this not to cause offense, and to fulfil the law. But Jesus is actually the Lord of heaven and earth. He created the world together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and he was the one who rested on the seventh day at the end of the creation of the world. So Jesus is Lord also of the Sabbath. He is in charge of the Sabbath, in fact, when we come to church, we come to hear him speaking his word to us. And it makes no difference to our faith, whether we hear that word on a Saturday, or Sunday, or Monday, or whenever.

In fact, there is a tendency among people who want to keep Saturday as the Sabbath and all the Jewish laws to also deny that Jesus is truly God. That’s because you can’t be justified by grace through faith on the one hand, and also be justified by Saturdays on the other hand. It’s easy to forget that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, and the make the Sabbath more important than even him. These people end up trying to copy Jesus’ life as a Jew, rather than living in the wonderful freedom of the Gospel that Jesus won for us when he died to fulfil that law. Yes, Christians should do good works, and out of gratitude to Jesus, seek to live a Christian life, and try to live according to the Ten Commandments. But even our good works need the forgiveness of sins.

And so, let’s remember the wonderful fact that Jesus is lord even of the Sabbath. Let’s praise him for coming to meet with us here in this place, on this day, to speak his word to us, and to feed us with his body and blood. In worship, we don’t do the work, we just sit there, but he works constantly. He is working to heal and bless and forgive and encourage, just as he did for the man in our reading with the withered hand. Amen.

Dear Jesus, we thank you that you are the Lord of the Sabbath. Fill us with the Holy Spirit, and teach us to fear and love God, so that we may not despise preaching and his word, but gladly hear and learn it. Amen.

Lent III B [John 2:13-22] (4-Mar-2018)

This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, Maryborough, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

                                                                                                                               

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

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

In our Gospel reading today, we read about where Jesus goes into the temple in Jerusalem, and he throws out the traders. The second thing is where some Jewish leaders go to Jesus and question his authority. And these two things are going be to focus of our sermon today.

Let’s come to our first part, where

I.                   Jesus cleanses the temple.

We read: The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In John’s Gospel, this event is recorded early in Jesus’ ministry. But in the other gospels, it happens later on Palm Sunday, a week before he died. Now, we Lutherans believe that the Bible doesn’t have mistakes. Our congregation’s constitution states this, we pastors confess this at our ordinations, and also it is stated in our church’s confession of faith, the Book of Concord. In Luther’s Large Catechism, we read: We know that God does not lie. I and my neighbor and, in short, all people, may err and deceive. But God’s Word cannot err. However, it is common in the bible to find some difficulties and things which seem to contradict. We all recognise that these things are there and all scholars who are honest know about them. The difference between people who think the bible does have mistakes and we who believe it doesn’t is not simply that we are too naïve to see them or not honest. The difference is in how we deal with these differences.

So instead of chucking the bible out the window, it has always been the custom of Christians to propose a harmony of these difficulties, and give a possible explanation. Some writers in history believed that Jesus cleansed the temple twice, once earlier and once later. We read in the Gospels that Jesus performed similar miracles more than once: for example, at one time he fed 5000 people, and at another time he fed 4000. Other writers believed that it only happened once, but that John wasn’t too worried about the chronological order. Sometimes the different writers put things in a different order. Whatever the answer is, we know that this event really did happen, either once or twice.

We read in our reading: In the temple [Jesus] found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with

the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. Even in Mark it says: And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. Now, in this passage, Jesus is angry. In a culture like ours, where people often don’t believe that there is such a thing as truth, people emphasise that we always have to be nice. A person who loses his temper, loses the argument. But what about Jesus here? Here we see him not always mild and friendly, but also angry.

Sometimes people make the mistake of saying that in the Old Testament, is an angry God, and in the New Testament, he is a friendly God. People almost talk like there are two different gods! There is only one God, and he is both angry and friendly. Both of these things show that God cares: his anger shows that he cares about his law and his commandments. Sin makes God angry. But also, God cares about sinners, like you, and he wants to rescue you and win you. Even though Jesus here is angry and often speaks God’s law, he is also friendly, because he wants to save you with the Gospel.

Now in this reading we’re talking about the temple. Now, in the Old Testament there are some parts (which might not seem very interesting!) which describe in great graphic detail how God wanted his temple to be built. He planned it exactly to be a beautiful house of worship. In the New Testament, we don’t have a temple, because all of the old ceremonies of the Jewish people no longer apply. We don’t sacrifices lambs and bulls anymore, because we have a better sacrifice, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who was sacrificed once and for all. But Jesus cares here about worship and about the temple. When he was a boy, he called the temple his Father’s house. And so also, we Christians too should dedicate ourselves to worship, and come to church, and hear the word of God.

We learn something here about the Third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath Day by keeping it holy. In the Old Testament, the Jewish people had to keep all kinds of rules and regulations of ceremonies and worship. They were forbidden from working on Saturdays, they performed sacrifices, circumcisions, offerings, washings, and all kinds of things. In the New Testament, we don’t follow these things, because Jesus has fulfilled these laws and has brought them to an end. Sometimes today, we come across Christians who believe we still need to do these things, like worshipping on Saturday and eating certain foods. We believe that these things are now left free, including the day of worship. We worship on Sunday freely, because Jesus rose on Sunday, not because it is commanded. However, God still commands us to come together as Christians and hear the preaching of the word of God. The writer of Hebrews tells us not to neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some.

Jesus in our reading cares about the temple and about the worship. He lived a perfectly obedient life as a Jew. Just as Moses came down from the mountain when he saw the people worshipping the golden calf and became angry and even smashed the Ten Commandments, so also Jesus throws these traders out of the temple, because they hinder worship and prevent people from hearing the word of God. Jesus says: It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’. How can it be a house of prayer with all this going on? How will people learn to pray if all they think they need to do is pay God off with a few cheap animals?

Now these words: My house shall be called a house of prayer, are written in large letters at the front of our church in Maryborough, together with some beautiful wooden plaques depicting the different sections of the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus says: It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers. Jesus says: Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade. Jesus doesn’t distinguish here between good trade and bad trade—he throws everyone out. There is a time and place for trade, but this temple is a place for prayer.

We Christians also need to realise that the church is not a business. God’s house is not a house of trade. Now, sure, every church has various expenses—we have buildings and property that need to maintained. Pastors also need to have a living. Paul says: the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the Gospel. However, we don’t preach the Gospel for a price, but freely, and sometimes pastors need to work on the side, if the church can’t support them. For instance, Paul made tents. But the problem of church finances is not getting more money out of people’s pockets, but getting the Gospel into people’s hearts. God is a living God, and he has already provided what we need, even if we can’t see it. The question then is how can we use our money, our gifts, and our abilities freely in the service of others.

John writes: [Jesus’] disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Here we see that Jesus’ anger is a holy zeal, it is pure and righteous. However, when we get angry, we always have some sin in it. We always get too angry. Parents know this well, and we parents have many regrets about this. We knew that we were right to be angry, but if only we hadn’t been so angry! Or sometimes we were wrong and we got angry. Remember Jesus died for bad tempers too. He died not just for the sins that are easy to fix, but especially for the ones that we hate ourselves for. Jesus covers over our excessive anger with his pure and righteous anger.

Now what if a pastor comes to a new parish (cough!) and finds things to be not as he would like it? Should he make a cord of whips and fix everything straight away? Let’s look at Martin Luther. When Luther went into hiding at one time, a man called Carlstadt thought that we have to fix everything in the church right now, and he made a real mess. Luther said, Just because some people in the world worship the stars, doesn’t mean we pluck them out of the sky! Wine, women and song make a fool of many a man, but that doesn’t mean that we pour out all the wine and kill all the women! A reformation must only happen through prayer and teaching, and Jesus himself must open the door for any change in his own time. He says: I am the door for the sheep.

However, sometimes the church is desecrated. I remember once seeing in recent years a situation in Germany where an imam was invited to sing the Muslim call to prayer in a church at the beginning of a concert. A lady in the audience shouted out and said that salvation was only in Jesus Christ, and that this act didn’t belong in the church. I think she was right for doing this. Sometimes, zeal needs to take over, and sometimes this kind of zeal comes from the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, the only way in dealing with a problem in the church is to say, Begone, Satan!

Now, we come to the second part of our reading, about where

I.                   some Jews question Jesus’ authority.

We read: The Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Here Jesus calls his own body the true temple of God. In John 1 it says: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Literally, it says: He pitched his tent among us, or made his tabernacle among us. Just as God dwelt in a tabernacle and a temple in the Old Testament, Jesus teaches that God is now to be found in him. Colossians 2:9 says that in [Jesus] the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily. This means that Jesus’ human body is a house for the living God. But it’s not as if Jesus’ human body and his human flesh are a dead thing, like a house made out of bricks, but his human body is connected to God in such a wonderful way that Jesus is both true man and true God in one person. Jesus is not just a temple for God, but he is actually God himself, and he lives in perfect unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Now, you might know that Muslims always pray in the direction of the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Wherever they are in the world, they have to face in that direction. When we Christians pray, which way do we face? Now we might say, we can face anywhere, but that’s not the whole answer. When we pray, we always face towards Jesus, because he is our temple, he is our holy place. Jesus says: No-one comes to the Father except through me. So, because Jesus is now seated at the right hand of God, he is available and accessible anywhere, and he can listen to our prayers wherever we are. And because of this, we can pray anywhere and in any direction. But we also pray in the direction of Jesus, and in the name of Jesus.

Now, sometimes, New Age people say that their body is a temple. Normally, people mean that they should exercise and keep their body looking trim, taut and terrific. But what they never say is who their body is a temple for. Is it a temple for the Holy Spirit, or some other spirit? Jesus’ body is a temple for the living God, and he is also true God. Our bodies are also temples of the Holy Spirit. This is not to say something particularly special about bodies. We are weak and we are decaying. St Paul says: We have this treasure is jars of clay (not in jars of gold) to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. Our bodies as Christians are not simply temples for anything, but temples of the Holy Spirit. St Paul says: Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God with your body.

So when Jesus cleanses the temple, he knows full well that the temple will become redundant. Jesus himself is the new temple. When Jesus died, the curtain in the temple was ripped from top to bottom. The temple is no longer needed. In the year 70 AD, the temple was destroyed by the Romans. Jesus is our new temple, and his word will never pass away. Just as Jesus got rid of all the hindrances in the temple to hearing God’s word, so also we should put away all hindrances in hearing Jesus’ eternal saving words.

Jesus says: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” You know, it shouldn’t really take forty-six years to build a temple. But as with all building projects, they get finished when they get finished. Remember the Tower of Babel never got finished, because God didn’t allow it. The prophet Daniel had said about the rebuilding of Jerusalem that it would happen in a troubled time. This temple was actually the second one in history and King Herod had built it. He wanted to make a name for himself. Sometimes in the church, people want to make a name for themselves and start a building project, but then the project for some reason takes a long time to finish. Even though his building project took 46 years, Jesus’ building project—his resurrection from the dead—only took three days. It only took the length of time to show that he was really dead!

And so we see here that Jesus is a real human being. He has a real human body. In other places, Jesus says that he has flesh and bones, that he has a soul, a spirit, a will, flesh and blood. He is a true human being just like us. But he also shows us here that he is true God. He has the power to raise his own body from the dead. He says: In three days I will raise it up. This is Jesus’ building project, a building project like no other. He says: I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. Even on the cross Jesus says: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

So what an amazing person Jesus is! He is both true man and also true God. He lets us meet God the Father through him—he is our temple. The temple was destroyed on Good Friday, but on the third day, Jesus raised himself up again. Even today he speaks his gospel to us again, and draws us to himself through his friendly, gentle words. He shows his zeal and shows us how we should put away anything and everything that would hinder us from hearing this word and his voice. He has baptised you and made you a temple of his Holy Spirit. And he gives you that very same body, the temple of the living God, and his blood, the sacrifice which atoned for your sin, for you to eat and drink in the Lord’s Supper even today. His body and blood is given for you and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This body and blood was destroyed on Calvary, and on Easter Sunday it was raised up with a power that is greater than all the power in heaven and earth. Let’s thank Jesus for the wonderful way in which he cares for us! Amen.

Dear Jesus, bless us with your Holy Spirit, and if there is anything unclean in us, then cleanse us out, and make us vessels and instruments for you and for service in your kingdom. Amen.