The JAR at the Empty Tomb: Easter’s Joy, Authority, and Reinforcement

Huron Chapel EMC SonRise Service - April 21, 2019 -- John 2:12-22
CATHEDRAL CATASTROPHE
Easter’s empty tomb is a prime example of God’s awesome power, triumphing over even death and decay. The Almighty shatters our expectations and smashes our preconceived ideas. We think too little of God, we underestimate Him. When we do think of Him, we may dismiss Him as irrelevant or doubt His power or importance for our daily life. We like to put God “in a box”. Throughout history people have built temples for God, sometimes imagining that’s where God would be satisfied. But He’s far greater than we suppose; He won’t allow Himself to be caged up, jammed in any box, or the most magnificent temple. He’s a bit ‘wild’ like Aslan the Lion in Narnia: to be revered, respected, unpredictable, absolutely free.
    The Jewish leaders thought they had a pretty good arrangement when Herod the Great built a majestic temple around the time of Jesus. They did all right with all the trading that went on by people buying sacrificial animals for the temple’s altar, too – it’s estimated they made a profit of some $300,000 a year through kickbacks from the merchants. So when Jesus came along at the outset of His ministry, driving out the animals and scattering the coins of the money-changers, they were none too pleased. Who was this rabble-rouser, this mischief-maker upsetting their neat system? John 2:16 Jesus said to those who sold doves, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” Who did He think He was, shaking their box like that?!
    So they challenged Him, asking Jesus to prove to He had warrant to do what He was doing before they locked Him up for raising a ruckus. John 2:18 they demanded, “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Whereupon Jesus replied, Jn 2:19: “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
    DESTROY this temple? Unthinkable! Why, it was still under construction, had been for 46 years already, and wouldn’t be completed until 64 AD. How dare He even mention the thought of doing something negative to their beloved Holy Place!
    But they misunderstood. Jesus is not talking about rebuilding a physical structure, the ‘religious box’ kind of place. Here at the outset of His ministry, Jesus is already alluding to His own crucifixion and death orchestrated in concert by the Jews and the Gentiles. When He’s clearing the temple courts, He has His own empty tomb in mind.
    “Destroy this temple” – no wonder they were a bit jumpy: Solomon’s temple centuries earlier had been destroyed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar. The Second Temple, a more modest structure built after the return of the Jews from exile by Zerubbabel, was superceded by Herod the Great’s grand construction project. We tend to be most protective of the things we pour most time and resources into.
    “Destroy this temple...” Just this past Monday, a religious landmark in France was gutted by fire: the woodwork and steeple inside Notre Dame cathedral was burned severely, though the stone towers survived and reconstruction to repair the building is already being planned. The news and social media were full of references to the loss as it is a popular Paris tourist site.
    Many were saddened by the loss; vigils were held where people sang hymns to mourn the calamity. Others saw a lighter side. Satirical humour website TheOnion posted: “Saying the devastation could perhaps have been avoided with some routine upgrades to modern 200-amp service, investigators announced Wednesday they have traced the cause of the Notre Dame fire to the cathedral’s archaic electrical system, which dates back to the 12th century. ‘In our examination of the wreckage, we discovered that some of the circuit breakers and sockets hadn’t been updated since the reign of Louis XII,’ said lead investigator Jean-Luc Marchand, explaining that many of the fuses from the time of the cathedral’s construction were made of solid oak, while much of the wiring consisted of twisted cords of straw.” (!)
    People have responded generously to the Notre Dame fire; there are reports hundreds of millions of dollars have been offered to help with repair. I guess there are forces in society very protective of our antique ‘holy boxes’. Yet some people question the worth of the project, saying the money would be better spent on helping the poor. Apparently donors can come up with money for bricks and mortar, while ‘loving one’s neighbour’ comes lower in priority – so the criticism goes.
    Let’s be clear: Jesus was NOT threatening to destroy the temple Herod had built. He was in fact upgrading it, clearing its courts so Gentiles could worship in peace. But He used the opportunity to point to His own death and resurrection as proving His authority to clean up our lives. To break into the boxes we may have tried to cage God up in. Jesus’ enemies thought that by killing Him and putting Him in a tomb they had eliminated Him once and for all, they had succeeded in boxing up the so-called “Son of God” – but Easter shows that’s one more box God refused to be contained by!
    Jesus’ intent was not just to clear the Temple: He was onto a much bigger project, to create a new living collective of those who follow Him, a new organic fellowship of believers who are much bigger than any physical building could hold. From the very outset of His ministry, He already has the end in view: His death, resurrection, ascension, and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, making a new temple, a group of people in whom God Himself dwells – better than even the most magnificent (but limited) earthly structure.
    Jn 2:19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” I’d like to highlight 3 implications of the resurrection for us today, springing from this passage. The acronym is JAR - picture the women bringing their JARs of spices to the tomb. JAR stands for JOY, AUTHORITY, and REINFORCEMENT.
JOY: NOT ABANDONED AFTER DEATH
First, Joy – we can rejoice and be happy because Jesus’ resurrection means we have hope beyond the grave. John the gospel-writer notes in v22, “After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said.Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.” Note the phrase, ‘believed the Scripture’ – which Scripture would John be referring to here? Perhaps Psalm 16, referred to by Peter in his Pentecost sermon: it seems to refer to resurrection many centuries before it happened. Ps 16:9f “Therefore MY HEART IS GLAD and my tongue REJOICES; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.” My heart is GLAD – my tongue REJOICES: knowing Christ’s promise that He’s risen and alive now, and coming back and taking us to Himself, with eventually resurrected working bodies, should give us much JOY.
    This is the first Easter since the death of my wife, the second since the death of my father; the promise of Christian faith that we will see our believing family members again is cause for much joy, helping us cope with grief. The Apostle Paul in 1Cor 15:42ff talks about our perishable (disease-prone) mortal bodies being replaced with glorified spiritual versions – that brings us joy on days when these earthly ones ache or perform sub-par. We can be ‘happy in the Lord’ (as one dear local saint puts it) knowing Jesus has conquered sin and the grave.
AUTHORITY: THE UNSEALED TOMB SEALS THE DEAL
Our second word in the “JAR” acronym is AUTHORITY: Jesus’ resurrection is meant to ‘seal the deal’ when it comes to proving He is really Lord as He says He is.
    Note carefully how the religious leaders pose the question, and how Jesus answers it: in terms of testing His claim to authority. Jn 2:18 “Then the Jews demanded of him, "What miraculous sign can you show us to PROVE YOUR AUTHORITY to do all this?"”
    The empty tomb is so significant because this historical event provides the cornerstone of Christology, appreciating who Jesus is. Without Easter, Christianity falls apart, it becomes a bunch of ethical moral teaching with no punch to carry through. Note how Paul pitches it in 1Cor 15:3f, “For what I received I passed on to you AS OF FIRST IMPORTANCE: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, THAT HE WAS RAISED ON THE THIRD DAY according to the Scriptures...” Likewise in the opening verses of his letter to the church at Rome, Paul highlights the authority issue and its connection to the resurrection: Rom 1:4 Jesus “...through the Spirit of holiness was DECLARED WITH POWER TO BE the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.”
    Don’t come to worship Easter morning because “it’s the thing to do”; don’t come out of force of habit, or because your neighbour goes. Come because Jesus is Lord and calls you to worship Him! Believe the Scripture. Acknowledge His authority over your life, His claim on you – after all, He created and redeemed you, bought you back when you’d wandered astray.
    Jesus is absolutely unique: no other religious leader in history has predicted they would die for people’s sins and would raise again, and actually pulled it off! No other religious leader in history would profess to be pure enough to give their life as a sacrificial substitute for other humans, let alone be raised to life again after. Easter vouches for Jesus’ authority. Receive Christ as Lord and submit to His leading in your life today!
REINFORCEMENT: A LIVING TEMPLE, BUTTRESSED BY OTHERS
Is our “JAR” getting full yet? J - JOY; A - AUTHORITY. Our final letter is R for REINFORCEMENT.
    Jn 2:21 John clarifies what the religious leaders didn’t “get” about how Jesus justified His actions: “But the temple he had spoken of WAS HIS BODY.” Jesus wasn’t referring to Herod’s temple, grand and impressive as it was; He was picturing a new religion, a new spirituality – people believing in Him, following Him, receiving the Holy Spirit inside them to connect them to Him and one another.
    His body really was a temple, He was the God-man, the divine incarnate. Col 2:9 “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form...” Jesus was Holy God in-the-flesh, the Father’s very Son. Jn 1:14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us...” The phrasing in the Greek is literally, “TABERNACLED” among us.
    He saw His own body as a temple. His vision was to make it possible for US to be temples too, forgiven and cleansed and made habitable by God’s Holy Spirit too. His Great Commission was not “Go and make cathedrals” – beautiful as they may be. How does it go? Mt 28:18ff “Then Jesus came to them and said, "All AUTHORITY in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” (There’s the authority bit we just talked about.) “Therefore go and MAKE DISCIPLES of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Real living disciples, followers, human agents Spirit-indwelt ready to carry out the Father’s will – not massive lifeless stone buildings.
    So Easter means our REINFORCEMENT by the Holy Spirit to each be individual walking/talking temples. 1Cor 6:19 “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?” Also Romans 8:11 “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead WILL ALSO GIVE LIFE TO your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” God’s Spirit REINFORCES us to live for Him in obedience.
    Think of the huge stone “buttresses” along the walls of Gothic cathedrals and ancient castles: outer reinforcement that strengthened the whole structure. Other believers perform that same function for us, coming alongside to strengthen and encourage us and cheer us on. The New Testament also talks about the church as a “temple”: believers CORPORATELY as well as individually. 1Cor 3:16f “Don’t you know that you yourselves [plural] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you [plural] are that temple.” And Ephesians 2:21-22 “In him [Christ Jesus] the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.And in him you [plural] too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”
    So, this week, be asking yourself: “Who can I ‘buttress’ in their faith today? How can I ‘be the church’ / ‘reinforce the temple’ by coming alongside a fellow-Christian who’s struggling, by praying for them, giving a phone call, dropping in for a short visit to say ‘I was thinking of you’? Don’t let those corporate temple walls erode, or cracks develop in our fellowship.
THE LIVING BODY ENDURES
In closing – we’ve been talking about how the Christian faith is much bigger than a cathedral, how the Notre Dame fire may be a setback but there’s something at stake here much larger than even Christendom’s most impressive architectural feats. I was hearing on the radio that besides donations to rebuild Notre Dame, people have likewise been stepping up to rebuild black churches that have been torched.
    And in the vigil that followed the Notre Dame fire, BBC reported the following: "As a French Catholic," says Éloi, 22, "I felt really bad after the fire so I see this vigil as a way to say that even if the flames destroyed the cathedral, we can rebuild it because the Church is made not of stones but is a living body."
    Whatever your view may be on rebuilding cathedrals, Eloi had that last part right: the church is made NOT of stones but is a living body – a body full of JOY, submitting to our Lord’s AUTHORITY, REINFORCED by His Spirit and the support of one another. Let’s BE that body – alive, active, showing our Risen Saviour to our world today, with caring and compassion, justice and righteousness and lasting hope – qualities no fire can threaten or diminish. Let’s pray.