The 10th Sunday after Trinity – August 4th, 2024
Trinity Ev. Lutheran Church, Block, Kansas
Rev. Joshua Woelmer
Text: Luke 19:41–48
“Christ Is Our Temple”
Theme: What makes a Christian is faith in Jesus, our true temple. All else distracts us from Him.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
What makes a Christian, well, a Christian? I know it’s a simple question, but perhaps it’s good to ask once in a while. The answer is simple: a Christian is someone who trusts in Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That’s what God wants you to be, and that’s what the whole Bible revolves around. The problem is that our sinful nature often gets in the way of this trust in Jesus. The devil is hard at work, trying to get us to trust in anyone other than Jesus or causing doubt in our souls. God is, of course, also hard at work strengthening your faith and bringing you always closer to the truth.
One of the things that the devil puts in front of your face is idolatry. Now, the devil isn’t a fool. He doesn’t try to tempt you with an idol of Vishnu or Buddha. His idolatry is tailored to you and your heart: what are you most likely to put your trust in other than Jesus? There are a few ways that pastors use to try to diagnose idols in someone’s life. We might ask questions like, “What do you rely upon in times of need?” or “Where do you turn when you are stressed or tired?” There’s another one that pertains to today, and that’s “As long as I have… I’ll be fine.” As long as I have family, I’ll be fine. It can be anything in that place.
Or, it could be this statement: “God loves me so much, he would never take this thing away from me.” Again, it could be your spouse, your house, or anything. What would that be for you? Then consider Job. God loved him, but allowed everything, even the love of his wife, to be taken away from him.
The hard thing is that even religious things can become idols. This was even true of the Israelites. We hear criticism of this idolatry from Jeremiah especially. Those in Jerusalem thought they were protected from any enemies because they had the temple in their city. It’s like someone who has a lucky rabbit’s foot or some other lucky token. You think that simply by having it, you won’t lose. If we have the temple, then no enemies can conquer our city, they thought.
Now, we do the same thing. It’s a common thing for us to have superstitions, especially athletes. I’m reminded of a story I saw last fall about Patrick Mahomes, quarterback of the Chiefs. Apparently he has worn the same pair of red underwear for every game of his professional career. Apparently, he regularly washes them unless he and the Chiefs are on a hot streak. Humanity never changes.
The people of Jerusalem believed in their “special underwear” of the temple: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord” (4). Idolatry distracts you from true worship of God. Simply having the temple didn’t mean squat for the Israelites. Simply wearing the same underwear doesn’t mean squat for Mahomes. Your idols—whatever they are—don’t do squat for you. Remember my two questions: “As long as I have <blank> I’ll be fine” and “God loves me so much, he would never take <blank> away from me.”
In the end, God took the Israelites away from their temple, and allowed the Babylonians to destroy it. The same would happen many years later to the second temple. Jesus predicted in our Gospel what would take place: Romans would tear Jerusalem and the temple down stone by stone because the Jews had made it into an idol. Sometimes he does the same to our idols, so we would learn to trust in Him.
God tears down all of our idols, big and small. Jesus drove out those who sold sacrificial animals. The funny thing is, this is the second time that he did this. They must not have learned the first time. The Jews of Jesus’ day treated the temple and everything that went on there as a business by which they could scam the people out of their money as they tried to buy sacrificial animals using the temple shekel. They got money by the absurd exchange rate from the Roman coin to the Jewish shekel, then again on the outrageous prices for the animals. Jesus wanted all of it gone.
But we should notice something very important in our text. It happens after Jesus cleanses the temple. What does he do for the next few days of Holy Week, since this takes place right after the Triumphal entrance on Palm Sunday? Jesus teaches “daily in the temple” (47). This is very important. After you remove idols, it’s important that you fill the space with God. Jesus cleaned out the idols, and he replaced them with his words.
Jesus’s words are what create faith. The people of his day recognized the power of Jesus’s words: “all the people were hanging on his words” (48). In fact, the Jews had to make other plans to kill Jesus because they couldn’t do it while he was right there in the temple. They would wait to arrest him when he was outside Jerusalem, in the Garden of Gethsemane. Nonetheless, Jesus’s words create faith in you. Open your heart to allow them to do their work. As long as I have Jesus, I’ll be fine” and “God loves me so much, he would never take Jesus away from me.”
What’s important to recognize is that everything in the Bible and in the Old Testament and everything here today is centered on Jesus. When we gather here, it’s not merely because we are all people who happen to live in a certain area and are related to one another. We gather here because Christ is our temple. We dwell in him, and he dwells in us. Jesus does cast out idols in our lives.
Jesus also encourages us towards good works. These are the effects of faith: “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever” (5–7).
Another effect of faith is to recognize the places and things that God gives us as gifts. Our church is not a thing to worship, but a place to worship God in. Our family are gifts from God, not people to put our trust in. Our possessions are given to us to be good stewards of, not to rely upon in days of trouble. Rather, call upon God in times of trouble. Rely on Him always. Read his word when you feel like the world is collapsing around you.
So while those in the world may put their trust in things of this world, like rabbit’s feet or special underwear or even a grand temple, we as Christians can recognize those things for what they are: idols. Those things will pass. They will fall apart and be destroyed. But when God removes idols from your life by the law and repentance, he does so to fill that time or that emptiness with God’s Word and life and forgiveness. It’s what Jesus did during Holy Week as he cleansed the temple. It’s what he wants to do for your life as well. He is your temple, now and always.
Now may the peace of Christ, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
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