Misreading Jesus
John 2:13-22
Third Sunday in Lent
analysis by Ed Schroeder
DIAGNOSIS: Temple personnel are missing out on the blessings of the passover and the temple itself.
STAGE 1: Mis-prioritizing Jesus. Misreading Jesus in his connection with passover, the temple. Demanding “signs” for his authority other than the signs of cross & resurrection (v. 19 & 20)
STAGE 2: Lightless, lifeless. At odds with the Father about the temple (and by extension about the passover too) and also at odds with Jesus (see vv. 24f.) in whom was “life and light,” ala Jn 1:4.
STAGE 3: Disinherited. Missing out on God’s own promise signaled in passover and temple, as it is now being “signed” over to them in the signs Jesus gives them.
GOOD NEWS: The blessings of temple and passover embodied in Jesus.
STAGE 4: God’s glory in the flesh is in this text, “the temple of his body.” Jesus fulfills both temple & passover in his body on the tree, and in his “bodied” resurrection, as John says so vividly in chapter 20.
STAGE 5: Believing Jesus is having both passover and temple promises as one’s own, and the life that is in Jesus’ name (v. 22).
STAGE 6: Witnessing. Not spelled out in detail in this text, but hinted at (vv. 17 & 22) in the disciples’ post-Easter “remembering” and “recalling.”