Lent #5: Can't buy me love.

When Jesus arrived at the temple for Passover--the time to celebrate the remembrance of God rescuing His children form slavery in Egypt, Jesus saw that the temple did not have the appearance of a holy place.

From John 2:14f
The porches and colonnades were filled with merchants selling only sacrificial animals, such as doves, oxen, and sheep, and exchanging money...Jesus fashioned a whip of cords and used it will skill driving out animals; He scattered the money and overturned the tables, emptying profiteers from the house of God.

Jews: How gave You the right to shut us down?  If it is God, show us a sign.
Jesus: You want a sign? Here it is. Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days.


Jesus saw the temple in Jerusalem under slavery again.  This time it was not the oppression of the Egyptians, but the oppression of identifying relationship with God as something that can be bought and sold. This is not a passage to limit bake sales in church (although it has been used as such), but a passage that identifies salvation as a work of God, out of the control of human interactions.

Jesus proclaims that the temple is His own body.  And holy relationship with God is through relationship with Christ.  You can't barter or trade or profit from your own or someone else's salvation. It is the transformative, miraculous work of God.  God doesn't bargain or ask you to come up with money down.

I used to say salvation is the deal of the universe:  all of us, for all of God.   That is true on one level.  But it implies that we have control in this and that salvation can be bargained and exchanged.  It implies that we come to the bartering table and put all of our stuff on the table and then we sign a contract with God.

Salvation is the covenant love of a lifetime.  It's the marriage of a soul to Christ that is wooed by the Holy Spirit and made possible by the transformation of the Creator. We do not exchange, bargain or make a deal with God. We fall in love. To reduce it to a economical exchange is to corrupt the nature of love.