Crucis: Axis Mundi
God is Revealed in Christ Crucified
John 2:13-22
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. March 3rd, 2024
Many of us have places where we may feel close to God. I went to a little liberal arts school called Carthage College, right on the shore of Lake Michigan. My dorms, most of the time, happened to be right on the lakeshore. When I woke up the sun rose over the lake, shone through my window, and woke me up. At night I saw the moon rise over the lake, its reflection on the waters a stairway to the heavens. While there I had a particularly distressing class that lead to questions about my faith. Those are matters I don’t need to delve into too deeply here. But one night, concerned, I walked out onto the shore to think and pray. Walking among the rocks and ice in the cold April air I looked up and saw a full moon. There was no particular religious significance to this moon. But I was startled by its size and brightness. I hadn’t expected it to be there. And I found myself overwhelmed by the grandeur and beauty of God. “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.” And in that moment I knew I could put the intellectual matters aside and rest in God’s beauty and love for awhile.
That was a space that opened up to me for a moment. Not all walks along the shore brought about that sense of God’s presence. But I’m sure many of us have places we go to where we may expect God to show up, to be particularly close to us. It may be a walk in the woods, it may be this very sanctuary, it may be a quiet time we set aside in prayer in our homes. But we have known that place where God opens himself up to us and we might open ourselves up to God.
In ancient Israel the Temple in Jerusalem was believed to be that place. The Temple was the house of God where he dependably resided, where he may dependably be approached. In its most inner room, the Holy of Holies, it was believed God rested his feet. Heaven touched earth. The smell of sacrifices pleased the living God. The rising cloud of incense signified his glory. As long as the Temple was there, as long as the sacrifices were maintained, as long as the prayers were said and the celebrations performed God remained and all was right with the world.
It is this Temple that Jesus cleanses like a storm. We are told that the Passover was near and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. There he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves and money changers seated at their tables. This may seem strange to us where we don’t usually have people set up at our Churches selling wares. But Jews would have taken journeys on foot lasting days or weeks or more to make sacrifice. It’s highly inconvenient to make that trip with cattle or sheep. So people would sell animals for the sacrifices in the outer portions of the Temple.
It might also seem strange that there would be money changers but Romans coins had the Emperor’s face etched on them, and such an image would have been considered idolatry. So people set up shop to convert the roman coins into temple coins that could be used to purchase the animals for sacrifice. All of this might seem sensible to Temple leaders, but was also ripe for abuse. And infuriated Jesus.
“Take these things out of here!” He shouts, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” The Temple is for worship, not for selling wares. It’s a place to encounter God, not make a living. He makes a whip of cords and drives them and their animals out of the Temple. And as the disciples watch the spectacle they remember Psalm 69 “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
The furious bystanders ask him for a sign to justify such a prophetic action. Jesus responds with a riddle that points to his future, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Temple, we are helpfully told, being his body.
With this riddling saying he points us to something important. The Temple is destroyed, after all. But the body of Jesus lives on. It is the crucified body of Jesus that becomes a Temple for us. As the Jews believed God resided in the Temple, and there heaven met earth, as we might come to spaces where we believe God grows ever closer to us, the cross is the true axis mundi, the axis of the world. It is where heaven meets earth, where God is most fully revealed, where his love is shown to us, where we may draw closest to him.
Jesus on his cross is the full revelation of God, and the place where we might know him most fully, worship most fully. God is the one who gives himself up for his creation. God is the one who forgives his enemies. God is the one who makes strength out of weakness, creates life in death. Here we see the character, the presence, of God most fully. We know in truth what God is like. When the Samaritan woman at the well asks Jesus where people should worship God Jesus tells her, “the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” This is the true spiritual worship, this is the truth of God, Jesus on his cross.
Paul says this is foolishness. Jews seek signs, greeks seek wisdom, all we have is the anointed one of God dangling on a cross. But for us being saved it is the power and the wisdom of God. When we look closely we see his eyes of love. When we attend, we know God makes himself known in the depths of our suffering and despair. When we worship the crucified we know we, truly, worship God.