Valerie Rae Hanneman
John 2: 13-17 (The Message) “When the Passover Feast, celebrated each spring by the Jews, was about to take place, Jesus traveled up to Jerusalem. He found the temple teeming with people selling cattle & sheep & doves. The loan sharks were also there in full strength. Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants “Get your things out of here! Stop turning My Father’s house into a shopping mall!” That’s when His disciples remembered the Scripture, “Zeal for Your house consumes Me.”
I was at a training last year with the Fiscal Team from work. The training was on how to deal with difficult people. In a law firm the size of the one we work for, it sometimes seems that difficult people multiply faster than the loaves and fishes! During the training the trainer was talking about how we stereotype people and he turned to me and asked, “For instance, what is the stereotype about redheads?” I knew what he wanted me to say, that redheads have a temper, but being a non-stereotypical person, I answered, “Redheads do what blondes only dream of – but that is not a stereotype, it’s the truth.” Everybody laughed; the speaker was dumbfounded for a moment then went on. But if having a temper is true of redheads then it is true of me because I am a redhead (just not this color of red) and I have a temper. I used to have a raging temper – I would be totally out-of-control, yelling, name-calling, throwing stuff – you name it – I tantrumed it. With my return to Jesus I knew that I could no longer let my temper go out-of-control like that, so I gave my temper to Him. I had to give it to Him a whole bunch of times before I let go of it (hopefully) for good. My witness for Christ is important to me and I just don’t think a hair-trigger temper is a good witness.
That is why I have always had a difficult time with this passage. How could Jesus, God the Son, lose His temper like this? Doesn’t it seem as if God, most of all, should be in control of His temper? And here He is whipping people, stampeding animals, throwing tables over – sounds like a temper tantrum to me! Why does God expect me to control my temper, when He doesn’t seem to be able to control His?
I read this passage many times before I realized that Jesus was angry but He did not lose control of His temper. Let’s look at what Jesus was looking at that day. He was entering the Temple at Passover time. The holiest place in Israel at the holiest time of the year. And what does He see? He sees the faithful who have come to offer sacrifice in atonement of their sins, but there is a man-made barricade to them. Now God was very clear on the type of animal sacrifice, unblemished, no broken bones, of one color. That’s all that God has said, but men have taken it further. Just to be sure that the sacrifice is acceptable, you can only buy the animals offered at the temple and you can’t use regular money. You have to use the temple coin to buy the sacrificial animal. So first of all, you have to change your money. Can you guess what Jesus saw in the Temple of God? He saw the loan sharks (money changers) dealing short on the exchange, and the animal sellers overcharging for the animals. Right there in the Temple of the Most High God, the worshippers were getting robbed by the low-life’s who were using God to make a profit. I think Jesus had every right to be angry. It is called a “righteous anger” – an anger caused by injustice. And Jesus did not lose control of His temper. He very calmly fashioned a whip and then did what was necessary to stop – for at least one day – people from being robbed by the representatives of their God.
What makes you tremble with righteous anger? The child at Faith Alive who screamed in fear of me – she makes me angry. Not because she was terrified of me. (I was the first white person she had ever seen and even under normal circumstances I can be a little much.) This child was from a rural tribe brought into Faith Alive by her grandma because she should have been walking and talking and wasn’t. Dr. Ogbeh explained to me that the child was undersized and under-developed because she was suffering from malnutrition. Faith Alive did not have the food supplements that could help the child, but Juth hospital did. I told Dr. Ogbeh that I wasn’t going to let a child starve, that I would buy the supplements. Dr. Ogbeh left with the child to get the supplements. Unfortunately I learned later that there had been no supplements at Juth and the child had returned to the tribe with her grandma. Unless there was some other intervention, the child returned to her tribe to slowly starve to death. It makes me angry that for lack of a nutritional supplement that costs less than a dollar a day, a child is starving to death. And this child is one of millions of children dying from malnutrition.
Jesus did something about what made Him angry. He couldn’t fix all of it - well, He could have but He would have had to leave His purpose for being on earth, so He really couldn’t. But for that day, He made a difference by acting on the injustice He saw.
Jesus has left us an example to follow. He wants us to be like Him and to get angry about the injustice we see. But then He wants us to do something about it. Maybe we cannot solve the whole problem – but we can make a difference.
What injustice makes you angry and what are you doing about it?
And yes, I am trying to do something about the malnourished children. I can’t make a difference for all the children in the world – but I am doing what I can for some of the children of Faith Alive.
LORD Jesus, help me to burn with Your righteous anger and help me to never stop trying to make a difference in Your name and following Your example.
Contact Valerie or sign up for the e-Ministry of FFBC at valerie@fresnofirst.org