The Tenth Sunday after Trinity

The Tenth Sunday after Trinity – August 4, 2024

Psalm 55; Jeremiah 7:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

St. Luke 19:41-48

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A den of thieves is the place where the robbers feel safe. It is where they store their stolen treasures and plot their next crime. A den of thieves is where the criminals hide from justice even as they prepare to break more laws. In this way, we can see what our Lord is condemning on Palm Sunday.

The money changers had turned the Court of the Gentiles into a market. Money changing was necessary. The Temple had its own currency, and it was necessary that foreign currencies be exchanged so that the Temple tax and tithes wouldn’t be offered in coins bearing foreign gods or idols. It was also necessary that sacrificial animals be bought and sold in or near the Temple. The Passover was coming and Jerusalem was filled with pilgrims who had travelled great distances to offer sacrifices. It was impractical and sometimes to expensive for them to travel with the necessary animals for sacrifice. So they needed somewhere to purchase the animals to offer to the Lord God, Almighty.

The sin comes in that the money changers had turned the court of the Gentiles into a market. The one part of the Temple reserved for Gentile believers was overrun by commerce. The Jews had refused the children of God by faith a place at the Lord’s Table. This is what makes God’s house of prayer into a den of robbers – not the exchange of money but the theft of a rightful place in the house of God to those of a different birth.

Our Lord wept over Jerusalem because she failed to recognize the time of her visitation; the time when God came to her for her salvation. Jerusalem was too busy seeking profit and power, long life and health to see her Lord had come.

In the year 70 AD, this prophecy of Jesus was fulfilled. The city of Jerusalem was surrounded and destroyed by the Romans. This destruction fulfilled two purposes. First, it was a judgment against the mighty city on the hill who time and again murdered the prophets and rejected God. Second, it was the very hand of God destroying an idol. Mankind is very good at making idols. We are twice as good at making idols out of good things given to us by God. Jerusalem was built as the city of peace, the site of the Lord’s habitation, His own dwelling. The Temple was built as the House of God, a monument in stone showing the presence of God among His people.

Then, when God descended into the flesh of man, He took a new dwelling. He began to dwell with His people, not in buildings of stone, but in flesh. At the crucifixion, the Temple curtain was torn in two to show that God no longer dwelt behind the curtain but with His people. The need for the sacrifice of animals was over. They were only ever a shadow of the final sacrifice of Christ. The end of sacrifices meant the end of the need for the Temple and the Temple priesthood.

But, given the opportunity, man will turn even the good gifts of God into idols. The Book of Acts and the Epistles are full of controversy over the necessity of keeping the food laws and circumcision. In general, just how “Jewish” do Christians need to be? Phrased this way, the question itself is wrong. No one needs to be Jewish by blood or ceremony to be a Christian, and this has been true since Adam and Eve were created! It is true that God chose one nation, one people, one ethnai to be His people. This was for the purpose of the lineage of Christ. Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Samson, Samuel, and David were and are saved by faith. No one has ever been saved by his blood or his heritage.

God is no respecter of persons. This is why He took such great offense when the money changers had taken over the Court of the Gentiles. It is true, the distinctions of the Temple were still enforced at this time, but God made provision for the Gentile believers. Remember, every time a centurion (Gentile by definition) is mentioned in the New Testament, his faith is commended. In Isaiah 56, the Lord God Almighty says,  

“Also the sons of the foreigner

Who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him,

And to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—

Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,

And holds fast My covenant—

Even them I will bring to My holy mountain,

And make them joyful in My house of prayer.

Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

Will be accepted on My altar;

For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”[1]

“For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all Gentiles, all nations, all people.” Immediately after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, Christians of Jewish descent began demanding that all Christians be circumcised, restrict their diets, and live according to Jewish laws. For a time and in certain places, St. Paul and the other apostles recommended bearing with these weaker brothers so as not to destroy their weak faith. However, there would come a time when these weaker brothers would also need to be strengthened. They could not claim to be children in the faith forever because their particular weakness made outward actions necessary before faith could enter in. Requiring the Jewish laws meant God would only save those who first committed outward acts of obedience. Salvation by works, not faith.

From Adam to today, and on to the very last day, salvation is by faith alone. No one is saved apart from faith nor in a way other than through the saving blood of Jesus Christ. The modern nation of Israel has nothing to do with the children of Israel in the Old Testament, aside from occupying roughly the same geography. The promises of God to His people Israel are His promises to the Church – the people of God. There is no necessity of a third temple, a sacrificial red heifer, or new priesthood within a modern nation for the salvation of man nor the return of Christ. These are lies first systematically taught by John Nelson Darby in the 19^th century and made popular in the heretical Schofield Study Bible.

Looking to the nation of Israel as the harbinger of the return of Christ is precisely to miss your visitation. To be focused on the ethnic Jewish people as somehow a continuation of the children of God is to hide your eyes from the one thing that makes peace with God – the blood of Jesus Christ.

Christ our Lord stood overlooking the same city for which Jeremiah wept and shed his own tears. Jesus wept for Jerusalem because he loves her and all her inhabitants. Jerusalem was the city chosen to receive the Incarnate Lord, given the Word of God and the promise of everlasting life. Yet Jerusalem had rejected her Savior. Jerusalem had killed the prophets and neglected the Word of God.

Our Lord weeps over Jerusalem because he loves her. He loves the Pharisees and Sadducees, the chief priests and scribes, the leaders of the people, the Romans, and the Herodians. If this were not the case, he would not bother to rebuke them nor shed tears on their account. He desires not the death of a sinner but his conversion. Jesus weeps for your sin. I’m not so certain that Jesus isn’t weeping as he cleanses the temple with a whip of cords. He weeps for your sin and then bears it to the cross of Calvary.

The same Jesus who chases out the money changers will shortly thereafter submit to these same authorities. He will not struggle against them. He will not seek asylum. It is Palm Sunday when he weeps for Jerusalem and cleanses the Temple. Jerusalem who kills the prophets and silences the Word of God will soon kill the Prophet like Moses, the Incarnate Word of God, the King of Kings, and Eternal Priest of the Most High. Jesus will submit to the death of a criminal so that the money changers don’t have to; so that you don’t have to.

Every drop of water in the Bible points to Holy Baptism, even the tiny drops of Christ’s tears. He sheds these tears to cleanse you of your sin. He sheds his Holy Blood to pay the debt your sin has incurred. He rises victorious to proclaim his word of forgiveness and victory over sin, death, and the devil; to claim you as his trophy. His tears, his teaching, his life, death, resurrection, and ascension are all accomplished for you, whether you like it or not. This is what Christ has to deliver to you through the lips of a sinful man.

A parent who enjoys spanking their child is an abuser. Chastisement truly hurts the parent as much or more than the child because we love them. The Heavenly Father chastises us for our own good. Christ cleanses the temple for the good of the money changers, so that they would repent, then listen to his teaching. Immediately after cleansing the desecration of the Temple, Christ teaches the crowds. He restores the Temple to its purpose – that place where the Holy God dwells with his people, distributing his Word of forgiveness and his gifts of salvation.

In + Jesus’ name. Amen.

---

[1] Isaiah 56:6-7.