Jenny is my friend’s daughter. She is an art scholar and a teacher at a school in Houston. While she was a grad student, she also served as a docent at the Houston Museum of Fine Art in Houston’s museum district. She knows things about the world of classic, Renaissance and Middle Ages art that I have no idea even exists. For example, there is something that can happen in old paintings that is called pentimento.[1] It’s when, due to the aging of paint, the dyes in the paint begin to become translucent, so much so that you are actually able to see through a layer of paint to what lies beneath. This is a real thing, and it actually has created a niche area of study in the world of art, where scholars are able to look through layers of paint to see what lies beneath. So, it is possible that an artist, having completed one painting, didn’t really care for it. Instead of throwing away an expensive canvass, he simply chose to paint over the top of what was originally on the canvass. To his original viewers, the underlying painting is invisible, but as pentimentation takes place across the centuries, you can see something that has been hidden for centuries. You can see what the artist intended.
So,
imagine for a moment that you are at the Houston Museum of Fine Art and my
friend is the docent there. As both a scholar and a Lutheran, she has a great
deal of interest in religious art, so she takes you to some of the classic
religious paintings that are on display there. Now, imagine that you are
standing in front of a picture where the artist has painted the scene from this
morning’s Gospel lesson: Jesus driving the money changers from the Temple. You
are standing, behind the velvet ropes, looking at the painting from several
feet away. You note the details of the painting. Jesus stands in the center of
the Temple courtyard, his white robe contrasting sharply with the dark red
over-garment around his shoulders. In his left hand, raised up toward the sky,
is a coil of rope that he is wielding like a whip, while his right hand points
at the money changers who are hunkered down, cowering, in a position of fear.
Next to them lies an overturned basket with coins scattered all around; a
couple of goats are free, a rope around their necks hanging loose; a cage lies
open, empty of the pigeons and doves that had been in the cage moments earlier.
At the edge of the painting, people – presumably worshippers who had come to
the temple – are milling around, curious about all of the excitement.
You
don’t see too many pictures of Jesus where he seems angry, so you get a little
closer to the painting to take in the details of Jesus. You see the look on his
face; the artist has done a magnificent job of showing what “Zeal for my
Father’s house will consume me,” must have looked like. The lines in His face,
the creases around the eyes, the slightly opened mouth – you wonder what it is
He is saying to those people standing nearby.
An
angry Jesus…why is he angry? You remember from the Scriptures that Jesus said
that these money changers and animal sellers had turned the Temple from a place
of worship into a sanctified flea market. What began as a well-intended service
– making available sacrificial animals for worshippers who lived too far out of
town to bring their own animals into the Temple – had taken on a life of it’s
own. It became a booming business and grew and grew until it was becoming a
bothersome nuisance in the Courtyard of the Gentiles. In fact, it was such a
problem that worship of God was literally displaced by the opportunity to make
money. The gifts of God had been
replaced by the special of the day; the prayers of the people had been replaced
by the hawker’s cry; the needs of the penitent sinner displaced by the need to
make bank.
And
Jesus, taking the whip in hand in one hand, pointing with the other, cleanses
the temple from this human exchange of goods and services.
This
is called the alien work of God, when His anger at sin and at sinners burns
clearly. When you feel His hand raised against you for what you have said or
not said, done or not done.
The
Temple merchants thought they were safe, even though they persisted in going
their own way apart from the Lord - and worse, distracted people from their own
devotion to the Lord. They never expected God to show His zeal and wrath
through Jesus.
Zeal
and wrath Lord Jesus makes us a bit uncomfortable - at least it does when we
are honest with ourselves about our sinfulness. Just like the merchants,
we expect that we will be safe, even though we persist in going our own sinful
ways. God has every right to aim His zeal and wrath in our direction
too. Look through the layers of the paintings of our own lives. Our
hearts have divided loyalties. Heaven knows that we would rather have
conflict over unimportant things than over eternal things. Heaven knows
we get into disagreements about the weather, about politics, about sports,
about what brand of tractor is best rather than to speak God's Holy Scriptures
to our neighbor.
Seeing
Jesus not hide from conflict with the wicked, but be consumed with zeal for
God's house makes our devotion to the Lord look all the worse - because we have
been devoted to ourselves, our money, our friendships in this world that is
passing away. We would prefer to go back a few verses in John 2 and hear
about gentle and kind Jesus who makes 180 gallons of water into really great
wine for a wedding reception. Or move ahead into John 3, where Jesus
talks about birth into the Kingdom of God through Water and the Spirit.
There we hear Him say that He has not come into the world to condemn it but to
save it. Yet today we see Jesus violently rebuking.
Remember?
You’re imagining that you are standing there in the Houston Museum of Fine Art.
You are becoming uncomfortable with this painting. You would rather not see
this angry Jesus - and yet, there he is – in living color. And, as you look at
this painting of Jesus cleansing the temple, what you realize is that it is an
image of Jesus cleansing you. Through that image, you realize all of the things
that have gotten in the way of your own life of discipleship to Christ. As the
grief and weight weigh down, you can almost hear as if Jesus is calling your
name while He is standing in the temple courtyard.
Then,
Jenny, my friend’s daughter, looks at you and sees the pain in your own face
and she recognizes it for what it is: guilt as you stand in front of the angry
Jesus. She takes you by the hand and says, “I want to show you something,” and
leads you right up to the painting. She says “look closely at his hands.” So,
you do. You peer in to look at the painting. Jenny says, “Now look into the
painting…look through the painting…” and, as you do, you notice something
remarkable: beneath the painted hand of Jesus holding the whip, you see what the
artist wanted to really paint. Looking through the whip, you see Jesus hand –
not clenched in anger and rage – but a hand raised in blessing. Curious, you
look at the other hand and, beneath the finger that is pointing in
determination is another hand held, palm out, as if to say “Peace – be still.” And
you notice in the center of the palms is the mark of the nail, the mark of
Christ crucified for you.
And,
what you realize as you look through the painting, is you are seeing the true reason
for Jesus’ anger: that people might repent and know Christ as the solution for
mankind’s sin. But, more than that, you see the reason Christ’s hands are held
out: to deliver forgiveness, blessing and peace. You have been cleansed – not with
a whip of rope, but with the whips that stuck His back. He gave Himself as the
perfect sacrifice to end all sacrifices. He absorbed all of God’s anger at your
sins. He cleanses what is impure and unholy in the temple of your body, and He
makes you a temple of His Spirit.
This
is Christ’s proper work – what it is He desires to do. It’s about seeing this
Jesus, who once stood in anger, receiving the full anger of God for the entire
sins of the world. It’s about Christ, who once cleansed the temple, becoming
the dwelling place of God among us. It’s about Jesus, who cleared out the temple
so people could worship in peace, who – in His death – removes all barriers
that stood between us and God, tearing the temple curtain in two so we have
full access to the Father through Christ. It’s about Jesus, whose Temple-body
was destroyed for three days and raised to life again three days later.
On
this 3rd Sunday of Lent, that scene of the resurrection is hidden
from us. I’m speaking of your own resurrection, on the day of Christ’s return. Jesus
will raise you too, as He Himself rose. Look through the cross and you see that your life is already
hidden in Christ, waiting for this day of the resurrection of all flesh. Not in
three days, but on the Day of His appearing.
[1] I
am indebted to a sermon by Rev. David Schmitt, preached while I was a Seminary
student (1996-2000), for this picture language of pentimento. Note also that the painting that is described does not exist, thus the repeated use of the word, "imagine...".
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