SUNDAY, MARCH 11, 2012 | LENT
THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT
YEAR B
Old Testament Exodus 20:1–17
Psalm Psalm 19
Epistle 1 Corinthians 1:18–31
Gospel John 2:13–22 (23–25)
GOSPEL
John 2:13–22 (23–25)
13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 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. 16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
18 So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 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.
Give us this day, our daily bread
Grace Mercy and Peace be unto form God our Father and Savior
Jesus Christ his son our Lord. AMEN
Our Focus for this morning is the Gospel Text and the Fourth
petition of the Lord’s Prayer, Give us this day our daily Bread.
I’m sure there is someone wondering why are we talking about
our daily bread when in today’s text we are hearing about the cleansing of the
temple? The cleansing of the temple is
certainly an exciting story of Jesus’ zeal for his father’s house. And at face value we could talk about not
selling things in church. The thing is I
can only think of a couple of churches that could very well use a fire and
brimstone speech about not using the church as a house of trade. The reason why we are talking about daily
bread is because it gets to the root of why the oxen and sheep and pigeons, and
the money-changers were in the temple courts to begin with and why Jesus was so
upset to see them trading. The people were supposed to bring their sacrifices
to God, and the traders were just making it easier for the people. The problem came about when people tried to
rewrite things in an effort to make it “easier” for the people.
Sacrifices to God
Most people spend the majority of their lives concerned with
being able to have the what they see as the basic necessities of life. It is the essential reason for why we work,
for we are attempting to be able to provide for our families and for ourselves. It is what man has been doing since Adam and
eve were cast out of the garden and were told that they would have to struggle
with the ground to grow what they needed.
IN essence we are struggling for our daily bread. Luther further defines daily bread in his
small catechism as What is meant by daily bread? Daily bread includes
everything that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food,
drink, clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout
husband or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers,
good government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation,
good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.
He goes well beyond our modern ideas of necessity of food and shelter,
into everything that surrounds us in our lives.
As sinful human beings we often want to accept the credit for having all
of these things. But we recognize as
Christians that these things come to us through God and his blessings which he
gives to believer and unbeliever alike.
When give to God, we are only giving back to him the blessings that he
has already given to us.
When God lead his people out of the promised land, he made it
abundantly clear that it was through his hand.
And he gave to Moses His Law for the people to live peacefully with each
other, and also the ways in which they were to worship him. Even his 10 commandments demonstrates the
emphasis of living toward God, as the second table are short statements,
whereas the first table is explained in detail.
In these laws is included the sacrifices to God, out of the abundance
which he had given to them. This is not
a give until it hurts situation, the Sacrifice wasn’t meant to be a hardship
for the people, instead the tithe- or Ten percent that was to be given to God
was trusting that God had given them everything, even enough to make it through
their lives without a portion of their harvest.
Supposed to be the First Fruits
So those who gave to the lord their sacrifices were giving
back to him in thanksgiving the things that he had already given to him. Now when you give thanks to someone, do you
give them your trash as a present to thank them. Obviously not. Instead you give them something new, like a
thank you card or the like. When giving
to God, the Israelites were commanded to give their best of the best. If they were shepherds- perfect lambs, if
they were rich-oxen, if they were poor doves.
From wherever they lived they were to bring their sacrifice to the
temple at least once a year.
Making it easier – Finding loopholes
One small problem though, they didn’t have trucks to bring
all these animals to the temple, and if they got hurt on the way they would no
longer be perfect for the sacrifice.
Well luckly there were pseople who thought ahead and just had flocks to
be sold that way you didn’t have to bring in those animals from so far
away. And for those of you bringing
money, we will change out that nasty foreign money with images of Ceaser on it
with money that does not have the false images on it. And we’ll do all this for just a small
convenience fee.
Making profits in the loopholes
About here is when most of us should be squirming in our
seats. It sounds good, on the one hand
until you look at what is really happening, people are trying to profit off of
other’s desire to give back to God! Yeah
sure you can give back to god, I’ll just take my cut before you do. This is where Christ’s anger comes from - trying to create Loopholes around God’s
Blessings and changing the focus off of what really matters, that God has
blessed us with what we need to eat and drink.
We can do the same thing in our lives. We can stand in the way of God’s Word because
our actions draw away from the true focus.
We can do this by placing our thoughts and desires before God and the
universal church. By doing so we say that
we are responsible for taking our daily bread, not just receiving our daily
bread.
Christ’s daily bread
But on our own we have nothing. Lent began with Jesus in the desert absent of
daily bread, suffering from temptation and hunger he had no bread to eat. , go from their to the "Bread of
Life" discourse in John
And in John Jesus confesses,
“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and
whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have
seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to
me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from
heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is
the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has
given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my
Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have
eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
And then in the upper room, He took bread, broke it and gave
it to his disciples. And then, of course
to the cross, where He thirsted, again with no bread or water.
God himself gave to the world in the very way that he asked
his people to give to his temple. He
sent his one and only son, the first fruit of all creation into the world for
us. HE didn’t just look good, but he
walked the walk and talked the talk. Our
sacrifices were to be a representation of our sinfulness and need for God’s
blessings, his sacrifice TOOK our sinfulness upon him and brought with him
God’s blessings for all of humanity. He
died upon the Cross so that we could have new life, and he gave it freely. He does not require us to pay for his
sacrifice, because he has paid the ultimate price, defeating sin death and the
devil.
We need our daily bread, and God gives it to us freely, to
the believer and unbeliever in order that we may know his great and abundant
mercy and blessings. We pray that we may
recognize this in our lives and give thanks to him forever. AMEN
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