Sermon Audio

“LORD, I have loved the habitation of Your house, And the place where Your glory dwells,” the Psalmist wrote. (Psalm 26:8) To confess this is the confess a specificity to the locatedness of the Creator of the Universe. There is a place where God is, a place in His creation. There is a location that you can point to and know that God is there.

To confess as much is also more than an acknowledgment of this locatedness of God, but also an earnest desire for it. “LORD, I have loved the habitation of Your house, And the place where Your glory dwells.” It is to say, “I love that You are among us, O God, that there is a place I can go to to be in Your presence, that there is a refuge where You are where I can approach you to seek respite from this weary world and forgiveness for all of my sins. In this, this place and in the forgiveness of sins, is where your glory dwells.”

And so the Psalmist also wrote, “[Z]eal for Your house has eaten me up.” (Psalm 69:9a) This locatedness of God among man is something to be treasured, to be zealous for. There, in God’s presence is sanctuary and relief. There, in God’s presence is forgiveness and life. And this place was the Temple of YHWH in Jerusalem, the center of all worship for the Hebrews and the Jews who would follow, and the place that would ultimately be summed up and reduced to the flesh and blood of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ. Who would not hold such a place in high esteem?

Well, a reading of today’s Gospel lesson would reveal that there were those who did not.

Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!” Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”

Now, ask anyone what it is that angered Jesus so much, and the answer you’ll get 9 times out of 10 is that it was the exchange of money within the courtyards of the temple in Jerusalem. Perhaps the exchange of money did anger Jesus, and perhaps these money changers were charging more than the fair value for the sacrificial animals they were selling, robbing the people of their hard-earned income, further angering Him. In fact, it is very likely that this practice was going on, even though John did not come right out and write as much, or otherwise blatantly indicate that it was. And this would be enough to incite the righteous indignation in the walking and talking tabernacle (cf. John 1:14) that Passover day in Jerusalem.

I would contend, however, that the people of God were being robbed of more than their money by those selling sacrifices in the temple. When John lets us in on what the disciples were thinking, He clues us in that Jesus was angered over the people being robbed of something much more valuable: the forgiving and life-giving presence of God. Sacrifices were being sold, most likely at exorbitant prices, forcing those of lower estate to go without. These robbing money changers were not so much separating people from their hard-earned money, but more than that, they were separating those with too little money from the love of God.

“Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up,” the disciples recalled. That the love of God would continue to flow to His people is something to be zealous for. It’s enough to fight for so that this would continue. The moneychangers were preventing this, and so the walking and talking temple fashioned a whip and drove them out.

It’s enough to say that this gracious and loving presence of God should be free. And so it would happen that some time later, once again on a certain day of Passover in Jerusalem, that the Temple would be destroyed, even as He here predicted, and rebuilt in three days. In the process, the curtain in the stone-built temple would be halved, from top to bottom. No more would the people of God need an animal to sacrifice to gain access to the presence of God. Free access to God was available to all through, and only through, the Son. And so, Dr. Martin Luther would write, “There is no other God except than this man Jesus Christ,” even as St. Paul wrote, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time...” (1 Timothy 2:5-6)

That there would be some who would prevent people from access to God and his life-giving presence was nothing new, and it is as old as time itself. For it was in the beginning, or shortly there-after, that the crafty serpent tricked Adam and Eve into eating forbidden fruit, thereby having them evicted from the presence of God in the Garden of Eden. More than that, however, the promise which God had made concerning this forbidden fruit was kept, “Eat of it and you shall surely die.” (cf. Genesis 2:17) And this a curse that was never known in the life-giving and life-sustaining presence of God; apart from Him is death. So it has been for every descendant of Adam since the fall—death looms over all, for all have sinned (cf. Romans 5:12)

And even since the fall, other agents of the devil have been at work to keep people from God’s promise, from Pharaoh to Nebuchadnezzar and many others, including the money changers in today’s Gospel.

Sadly, the practice of preventing access to the love of God did not stop with the cleansing of the temple. Throughout history, similar practices and teachings with similar results have been adopted and enforced. Certainly, we are familiar with the selling of indulgences, and the law-filled burden that placed on the consciences of God’s people. But we need not stop there, as the false teachings concerning salvation, such as synergism, Pelagianism, and Semi-Pelagianism have long been a bane on Christendom—teachings, persistent to this day, which espouse in one way or another that man must work at saving himself or somehow cooperate with God to earn salvation. Each of these are practices and teachings which deny the efficaciousness of the Temple sacrifice—the death of Jesus Christ on the altar of the cross, once for all. They all demonstrate a lack of zeal for the House of God—for His gracious and loving presence.

And before we move on, it would do us well to examine ourselves. Oh, how often have we and do we agree with these false doctrines? After all, it makes sense that love is something we merit or earn. So it must be with the love and presence of God, as the devil, the world, and our own sinful flesh are always at work to convince us. If not in this direction, then certainly in the opposite, as we easily fall into the trap of believing that God is angry with us and ignoring us when things don’t go well for us, when things don’t go our way. This, too, is sinful thinking, thinking that demonstrates a lack of zeal for the House of God—for His gracious and loving presence.

But, we can go on, even as we consider the ways that God promises His presence among His people. “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them,” Jesus said. (Matthew 18:20) “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” it is written. (Acts 2:38) “Take and eat, this is my body...take and drink, this is my blood...for my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink,” Jesus declared. (cf. Mark 14:22, 24; John 6:55)

Zeal for the presence of God continues to this day, and it is something that is continuously fought for, even as we can recount from the 16th century reformation and the works that followed, and are held in esteem today. For it is written in the Formula of Concord, “[W]hen the Word of God is preached purely and truly, according to the command and will of God, and men listen attentively and earnestly and meditate upon it, God is certainly present with His grace...” (Triglot, SD, II, 55) Likewise, it is written in the Large Catechism, “[F]or where Christ is not preached, there is no Holy Ghost who creates, calls, and gathers the Christian Church, without which no one can come to Christ the Lord.” (Triglot, LC, Art. III, 45) Further, it is simply stated in the Augsburg Confession, “For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.” (Triglot, AC, V, 1-3)

God promises His presence in means: Word and Sacrament. Where these are neglected or ignored, there God is not present. Yet, even to this day, there are those who believe and teach that this is not the case, that God is not present in His Word, that they are merely words, and that God is not present in His declared means, that these are simply symbols. And again, these are easy traps to fall into, even for us, for when the Word is proclaimed and preached, it certainly doesn’t look and sound like Jesus, as if we knew what Jesus sounded like. And we certainly do not see Jesus with our eyes of flesh in the Holy Sacraments. Even in this is there a lack of zeal for the House of God, where these things take place—a lack of zeal for His gracious and loving presence.

Despite all of this, zeal for the house of God has eaten up the God-man Jesus Christ. Zeal for God’s presence among His people ate Him up. So, as we heard, He cleanses the temple made of stone. More than that however, He grants God’s presence for His people as He even demonstrates His zealousness for them—for you—as He made His way back to Jerusalem for yet another Passover. The zeal for the house of God that ate Him up is the same zeal that He took to the cross of calvary, and from calvary to the grave, even to hell and back, and which He now has at the right hand of the Father. It is a zeal that desires His presence with you and work for you, His people—His gracious, loving, forgiving, and life-giving presence and work.

All that He has done, from the cleansing of the temple, to His giving of His Sacred Supper, from the promise of His presence in the Word, to the promise of the Holy Ghost in the Sacred Flood, even His death and resurrection, He has done for you. Even all that He does now is for you. For verily, He sits at the right hand of the throne of God for you, where He fulfill His tri-fold office of prophet, priest, and king for you:

• As your prophet, He sends men to preach the Gospel of redemption.
• As your priest, He intercedes and pleads for you before God.
• As your king, He governs and protects His Church, ruling the world in the interest of His Church, of which you are a part.

He does all of this that He may be present among you here in time, that you may be in His presence there in eternity. This is most certainly true—He declares it to be so—and something for which to be zealous, to have an earnest desire for. He does all of this for you without any merit or worthiness on your part—His grace is completely free, no strings attached, no ox or doves to buy—and He gives you the faith to believe it and Him and receive it and Him.

Therefore, we could most certainly echo what the Psalmist wrote. “O Lord, I love the habitation of Your house, and the place where Your glory dwells.” Why? Because He is here! The specificity of the locatedness of God is right here! His zeal is to be here for you! Here are the Sacraments celebrated, given and received, as He has instituted them. Here is the Word proclaimed, in the purity of Christ crucified for you. And so, God, the true God—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost—is here, graciously, lovingly, life-givingly. And since He is here, and you by faith believe in and receive Him, you can be certain of this: you are forgiven for all of your sins.