“Live From Jerusalem: The Temple Courts”
Luke 19:45-21:38

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Lent Service II—February 24, 2021

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

The theme of the meditations for our Lent services this year is “Live from Jerusalem,” looking at the events of Holy Week.  We began last week with “The Triumphal Entry” on Palm Sunday.  In most studies of Holy Week, and readings of the accounts Holy Week from the Gospels, after Palm Sunday you usually you skip a few pages, and a few days, until Maundy Thursday.  But, there is actually a lot of information recorded in the Gospels about Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of Holy Week. 

You may not know that Wednesday of Holy Week is traditionally called “Spy Wednesday,” because that is the day the perfidious Judas agreed to betray Jesus.  It seems Jesus spent this day resting in nearby Bethany at the home of his close friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  One final day of peace before embarking on the epic, terrible events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

In contrast to that day of rest in the middle of Holy Week, according to the Gospels, Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week were very long, busy days for our Lord, filled with teaching and many confrontational encounters with his enemies, mostly in the courtyard complex surrounding the Temple in Jerusalem.  In this evening’s reading, we had just a small sampling of the events that took place on those days in “The Temple Courts.”

One way to look at Jerusalem in that era is as a company town.  It reminds me of Lawrence, Kansas, where I served as pastor.  Right in the center of Lawrence, atop Mt. Oread, is the sprawling campus of The University of Kansas.  Nearly everyone in town is in some way dependent on that institution for their livelihood. 

In the same way, atop Mt. Zion in Jerusalem stood the massive Temple complex.  It is estimated that the population of Jerusalem in Jesus’ day was about 50,000, and the Jewish historian Josephus tells us that 10,000 of those worked at the Temple.  If you include the spouses and dependents of those Temple workers, it was truly a company town, with nearly everyone dependent on the activities of the Temple for their livelihood. 

The first time I was visited Jerusalem, it occurred to me that another, perhaps somewhat irreverent, way to look at this holy city is really as a one, big, religious tourist attraction.  There actually is a full-fledged theme park, in where else but Orlando, Florida, called “The Holy Land Experience.”  But, the original Holy Land theme park was Jerusalem itself, 2,000 years ago.  Especially during the annual Passover pilgrimage.  That one week each year it’s estimated the city’s population soared from 50,000 to over 250,000, with pilgrims, or you could say tourists, flocking there from all over the ancient world.

The motto of Disneyland is, “The happiest place on earth.”  If Jerusalem was like an ancient religious theme park that’s certainly what it should have been during the glorious Passover celebration, “The happiest place on earth.”  Especially this year.  Because, the whole purpose of Passover, when the sacrificial Passover lambs were slaughtered each year, was to point forward to the Lamb of God who was to come, who by his sacrificial death would take away the sins of the world.  After nearly 1,500 years, THIS year the One to whom all those previous Passovers pointed was finally here, RIGHT here, in “The Temple Courts.”  As Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed for us.”  That year in particular, with the long-awaited Messiah finally in their midst, Jerusalem should have been, “The happiest place on earth.”

But, if you’ve ever actually been to Disneyland, you know it doesn’t always live up to that motto.  Tensions mount and families fight among themselves.  That’s what’s happening in Temple courtyards at Jerusalem this Passover season, on Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week.  There is tension and a fierce fight within the extended family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  A fight over whether Jesus is who he claims to be, the promised Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

“One day as he was teaching the people in the temple courts and preaching the Gospel, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, together with the elders, came up to him.  ‘Tell us by what authority you are doing these things,’ they said. ‘Who gave you this authority?’”

“Keeping a close watch on him, they sent spies, who pretended to be honest. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor.”

“Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him.”

Instead of joy and exaltation this Passover season, “The Temple Courts” are filled with confrontation and controversy.  That’s because many of the people, and especially their religious leaders, the chief priests and teachers of the law, had forgotten what the Passover, and indeed their whole faith, was really all about: the promise of the Savior.  And so John says with sad irony in the introduction to his Gospel, that when the long-awaited Messiah finally did arrive on the scene, “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

Sadly, like the confrontation and controversy that filled those ancient Temple courts on Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week, the temple of the New Testament, Christ’s Church, can also sometimes become marred with quarrels and conflict.  The Church should truly be, “The happiest place on earth.”  For, we know the Good News that our sins are all forgiven by God’s grace on account of Christ.  As Paul says in Ephesians, “Live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as an offering and sacrifice to God.”  But, instead of an oasis of love, joy, and peace in our troubled world, if we forget what our faith is really all about, these temple courts can become, like those ancient Temple courts, a place instead of struggles and strife.

Some years ago a survey was taken among the unchurched about why they don’t go to church.  The most common response, selected by 85% of the unchurched, was, “Churches have too many problems.”  One respondent said, “Why would I want to join a church?  I have enough trouble in my life already.”

The bitter confrontation and controversy that Christ experienced in the Temple courts on Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week gives new meaning and perspective to the words he spoke to his disciples a few days later at the Last Supper on Maundy Thursday: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” 

Paul puts it this way in Colossians: “As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds you all together in perfect unity.  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.”

I always get the spelling of the words “complementary” with an “e” and “complimentary” with an “i” mixed up.  “Complementary” with an “e” means different parts that fit together and work together, that together “complete” one another.  Paul says in Romans, “In Christ we who are many form one body,” and in 1st Corinthians, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

We are “complementary” to one another in Christ’s Church.  We “complete” one another.  As Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. . .  The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’ . . .  But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.”

We are “complementary” to one another in Christ’s Church.  Like the parts of a body, we “complete” one another.  As Paul says in Ephesians, “The whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

And, in contrast to the confrontation and controversy Christ experienced in those ancient Temple courts, here in the New Testament temple of Christ’s Church, because God has brought us together in Christ, because in Christ he has made us “complementary” to one another with an “e,” we will also be “complimentary” to one another with an “i.”  Actually, the two words are really the same.  One is the English spelling, the other French.  Etymologically, the reason you “compliment” someone, show them gratitude, consideration, and affection, is literally because they “complement,” “complete” you.  As Paul says in Ephesians, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism. . .  for we are all members of one body.”

It is the same in your family, and especially in your marriage.  You “compliment” one another with an “i,” show gratitude, consideration, and affection, because you “complement” one another an “e,” “complete” each other.

 After recounting some of the quarrels and conflicts which Jesus faced during Holy Week, this evening’s reading concludes, “Each day Jesus was teaching at the Temple, and each evening he went out to spend the night on the hill called the Mount of Olives.”  We know from the other Gospels that he stayed in the home of his close friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, at Bethany on the Mount of Olives.  In contrast to the confrontations and conflicts Jesus experienced in “The Temple Courts” on Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week, make this temple, and also your own home, an oasis of love, joy, and peace, a refuge like Jesus found that week in the home of his dear friends.