Since that time, there has been a noticeable reduction in the wave of theologies of revolution that attempt to justify violence as a means of building a better world—the “kingdom”—by interpreting Jesus as a “Zealot”. The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all. Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be. It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity.
But what about Jesus? Was he a Zealot? Was the cleansing of the Temple a summons to political revolution? Jesus’ whole ministry and his message—from the temptations in the desert, his baptism in the Jordan, the Sermon on the Mount, right up to the parable of the Last Judgment (Mt 25) and his response to Peter’s confession—point in a radically different direction, as we saw in Part One of this book.
No; violent revolution, killing others in God’s name, was not his way. His “zeal” for the kingdom of God took quite a different form. We do not know exactly what the pilgrims had in mind when they spoke, while “enthroning” Jesus, of the “coming kingdom of our father David”. But what Jesus himself thought and intended he made very clear by his gestures and by the prophetic words that formed the context for his actions.
At the time of David, the donkey had been a sign of kingship, and so Zechariah, basing himself on this tradition, depicts the new king of peace riding into the Holy City on a donkey. But even in Zechariah’s day, and still more by the time of Jesus, it was the horse that had come to signify the might of the mighty, while the donkey had become the animal of the poor, and so it served to express an entirely different image of kingship.
It is true that Zechariah proclaims a kingdom that extends “from sea to sea”. Yet precisely in this way he distances himself from any national frame of reference and points toward a new universality, in which the world finds God’s peace and is united, beyond borders of any kind, in worship of the one God. In the kingdom of which he speaks, the weapons of war are destroyed. What for him remains a mysterious vision—the precise shape of which cannot be clearly discerned by the contemplation of the one coming from afar—slowly becomes clear in the course of Jesus’ ministry; only after the Resurrection, though, as the Gospel is brought to the Gentiles, does it gradually take on a definite shape. Yet even at the time of the entrance into Jerusalem, the connection with late prophecy in which Jesus situated his action gave to his gesture a direction that was radically opposed to the “Zealot” interpretation.
In the prophecy of Zechariah, Jesus found not only the image of the king of peace arriving on a donkey, but also the vision of the slain shepherd, who saves by his death, as well as the image of the Pierced One on whom all eyes will gaze. The other broad frame of reference within which Jesus located his ministry was the vision of the Suffering Servant who, in serving, offers up his life for the multitude and thus brings salvation (cf. Is 52:13-53:12). This late prophecy is the interpretative key with which Jesus unlocks the Old Testament. After Easter, he himself would become the key to a new reading of the Law and the Prophets.
Let us now consider the interpretation that Jesus himself gives to the act of cleansing the Temple. We begin with Mark’s account, which, apart from one or two details, is very similar to Matthew’s and Luke’s. After the cleansing of the Temple, so Mark tells us, “[Jesus] taught”. The essential content of this “teaching” is succinctly expressed in these words of Jesus: “Is it not written: ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mk 11:17). In this synthesis of Jesus’ “teaching” on the Temple—as we saw earlier—two different prophecies are combined.
The first is the universalist vision of the Prophet Isaiah (56: 7) of a future in which all peoples come together in the house of God to worship the Lord as the one God. In the layout of the Temple, the vast Court of the Gentiles in which this whole episode takes place is the open space to which the whole world is invited, in order to pray there to the one God. Jesus’ action underlines this profound openness of expectation which animated Israel’s faith. Even if Jesus consciously limits his own ministry to Israel, he still embodies the universalist tendency to open Israel in such a way that all can recognize in its God the one God common to the whole world. In answer to the question of what Jesus actually brought to mankind, we argued in Part One of this book that he brought God to the nations (p. 44). According to his own testimony, this fundamental purpose is what lies behind the cleansing of the Temple: to remove whatever obstacles there may be to the common recognition and worship of God—and thereby to open up a space for common worship.
A similar conclusion may be drawn from a brief scene recounted by John concerning “Palm Sunday”. We must of course remember that in John’s account, the Temple cleansing took place during Jesus’ first Passover, at the beginning of his ministry. The Synoptics, on the other hand—as we have already seen—contain only one Passover, and so the cleansing of the Temple perforce takes place in the very last days of Jesus’ ministry. While the majority of exegetes assumed until recently that John’s chronology is “theological” and not historically exact, today it is becoming clearer that there are good reasons to consider John’s account chronologically accurate as well—here, as elsewhere, he shows himself to be very well informed concerning times, places, and sequences of events, notwithstanding the profoundly theological character of the material. Yet there is no need for us to enter into what is ultimately a secondary discussion. Let us simply examine this brief episode, which, although it does not coincide chronologically in John’s account with the cleansing of the Temple, nevertheless sheds further light on its inner meaning.
The evangelist tells us that among the pilgrims there were also some Greeks, “who went up to worship at the feast” (Jn 12:20). These Greeks approached “Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,” with the request: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (12:21). In the man with the Greek name from half-Gentile Galilee, they evidently saw a mediator who could give them access to Jesus. We may detect a distant echo in these words spoken by Greeks, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus”, of Saint Paul’s vision of the Macedonian who said to him: “Come over to Macedonia and help us” (Acts 16:9). The Gospel goes on to say that Philip discussed the matter with Andrew and that the two of them together brought the request to Jesus. Jesus replied—as so often in John’s Gospel—in a mysterious way that was puzzling at the time: “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (12:23-24). When asked by a group of Greek pilgrims for an opportunity to meet him, Jesus responds with a prophecy of the Passion, in which he points to his imminent death as “glorification”—glorification that is manifested in great fruitfulness. What does this mean?
It is not some brief, external encounter between Jesus and the Greeks that matters. There is to be another, far deeper encounter. The Greeks will indeed “see” him: through the Cross he comes toward them. He comes as the grain of wheat that has died, and he will bear fruit among them. They will see his “glory”: in the crucified Jesus they will find the true God, the one they were seeking in their myths and their philosophy. The universality of which Isaiah’s prophecy speaks (56:7) is brought into the light of the Cross: from the Cross, the one God becomes visible to the nations; in the Son they will recognize the Father, that is to say, the one God, who revealed himself in the burning bush.
Let us now return to the cleansing of the Temple. Here Isaiah’s universalist promise is combined with this prophecy from Jeremiah (7:11): “You have made my house into a den of robbers.” We will return briefly to Jeremiah’s battle over the Temple in our exegesis of Jesus’ eschatological discourse, but let us anticipate the essential argument here. Jeremiah is an impassioned advocate of the unity of worship and life in the context of divine justice. He fights against a politic
ization of the faith that would see God’s constant protection of the Temple as something guaranteed, for the sake of maintaining the cult. But God does not protect a Temple that has been turned into a “den of robbers”.
In the combination of worship and trade, which Jesus denounces, he evidently sees the situation of Jeremiah’s time repeating itself. In this sense, his words and actions constitute a warning that could be understood, together with his reference to the destruction of this Temple, as an echo of Jeremiah. But neither Jeremiah nor Jesus is responsible for destroying the Temple: both, through their passion, indicate who and what it is that truly destroys the Temple.
This exegesis of the cleansing of the Temple emerges even more clearly in a saying of Jesus that only John quotes in this context but that Matthew and Mark attribute, in somewhat distorted form, to the false witnesses at Jesus’ trial. There is no doubt that this saying originated on the lips of Jesus, and it is equally clear that it belongs in the context of the cleansing of the Temple.
In Mark’s Gospel, the false witness accuses Jesus of saying: “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands” (Mk 14:58). The “witness” probably comes quite close to Jesus’ actual words, but he is mistaken in one crucial point: it is not Jesus who destroys the Temple—it is those who turn it into a den of robbers who abandon it to destruction, just as in Jeremiah’s day.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ actual words are rendered thus: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (2:19). This was how Jesus responded to the Jewish officials’ demand for a sign to demonstrate his authority for acting as he did in the cleansing of the Temple. His “sign” is the Cross and Resurrection. The Cross and Resurrection give him authority as the one who ushers in true worship. Jesus justifies himself through his Passion—the sign of Jonah that he gives to Israel and to the world.
Yet this saying has an even deeper significance. As John rightly says, the disciples understood it in its full depth only after the Resurrection, in their memory—in the collective memory of the community of disciples enlightened by the Holy Spirit, that is, the Church.
The rejection and crucifixion of Jesus means at the same time the end of this Temple. The era of the Temple is over. A new worship is being introduced, in a Temple not built by human hands. This Temple is his body, the Risen One, who gathers the peoples and unites them in the sacrament of his body and blood. He himself is the new Temple of humanity. The crucifixion of Jesus is at the same time the destruction of the old Temple. With his Resurrection, a new way of worshipping God begins, no longer on this or that mountain, but “in spirit and truth” (Jn 4:23).
So what can we say on the subject of Jesus’ “zēlos”? John provides a most helpful saying, specifically in the context of the cleansing of the Temple, that answers this question precisely and thoroughly. He tells us that, at the time of the cleansing of the Temple, the disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me” (2:17). This is taken from the great “Passion Psalm” 69. Living according to God’s word leads to the psalmist’s isolation; for him it becomes an additional source of suffering imposed upon him by the enemies who surround him. “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. . . . It is for your sake that I have borne reproach. . . . Zeal for your house has consumed me. . . .” (Ps 69:1, 7, 9).
In the just man exposed to suffering, the memory of the disciples recognized Jesus: zeal for God’s house leads him to the Passion, to the Cross. This is the fundamental transformation that Jesus brought to the theme of zeal—zēlos. The “zeal” that would serve God through violence he transformed into the zeal of the Cross. Thus he definitively established the criterion for true zeal—the zeal of self-giving love. This zeal must become the Christian’s goal; it contains the authoritative answer to the question about Jesus’ relation to the Zealot movement.
This exegesis is further confirmed by two brief episodes with which Matthew concludes the account of the cleansing of the Temple.
“The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them” (21:14). In contrast to the cattle-trading and money-changing, Jesus brings his healing goodness. This is the true cleansing of the Temple. Jesus does not come as a destroyer. He does not come bearing the sword of the revolutionary. He comes with the gift of healing. He turns toward those who, because of their afflictions, have been driven to the margins of life and society. He reveals God as the one who loves and his power as the power of love.
All this is further illustrated by the fact that the children repeat the Hosanna acclamation that the great had denied him (Mt 21:15). From these “little ones”, praise will always come to him (cf. Ps 8:2)—from those able to see with pure and undivided hearts, from those who are open to his goodness.
These two brief episodes, then, announce the coming of the new Temple, the Temple that Jesus came on earth to build.
CHAPTER TWO
Jesus’ Eschatological Discourse
In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, after the “woes” with which Jesus denounced the scribes and Pharisees—that is to say, in the context of the discourses given after his entrance into Jerusalem—there is a mysterious saying of Jesus that Luke also quotes (albeit at an earlier point, during the journey toward the Holy City): “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate. . . .” (Mt 23:37-38; Lk 13:34-35). This passage clearly reveals Jesus’ profound love for Jerusalem and his impassioned efforts to elicit from the Holy City a positive response to the message he must proclaim, the message with which he takes his place in the long line of God’s messengers from earlier salvation history.
The image of the protective, solicitous mother bird comes from the Old Testament: God “found [Jacob] in a desert land . . . he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions” (Deut 32:10-11). One is reminded of the beautiful passage from Psalm 36:7: “How precious is your mercy, O God! The children of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings.”
Here Jesus expresses his own ministry and his summons to discipleship in terms of the powerful goodness of God himself, who protects Jerusalem with outstretched wings (Is 31:5). Yet this same goodness invites the free consent of the chicks, which they refuse: “and you would not!” (Mt 23:37).
The misfortune to which this refusal leads is described by Jesus mysteriously yet unmistakably in a saying couched in the language of ancient prophecy. Jeremiah records the words spoken by God concerning the abuses in the Temple: “I have forsaken my house; I have abandoned my heritage” (12:7). Jesus says exactly the same thing: “Your house is forsaken” (Mt 23:38). God is withdrawing. The Temple is no longer the place where he sets down his name. It will be left empty; henceforth it is merely “your house”.
There is a remarkable parallel to this saying of Jesus in the writings of Flavius Josephus, the historian of the Jewish War. Tacitus likewise took up the same idea in his own historical writing (cf. Hist. 5, 13). Flavius Josephus reports strange happenings in the final years before the outbreak of the Jewish War, all of which, in different and unsettling ways, heralded the end of the Temple. The historian tells of seven such signs altogether. Here I shall limit my comments to the one that bears a strange resemblance to the somber words of Jesus quoted above.
The event took place at Pentecost in A.D. 66 “At the Feast of Pentecost, when the priests had gone into the inner court of the Temple at night to perform the usual ceremonies, they declared that they were aware, first of a violent movement and a loud crash, then of a concerted cry: ‘Let us go hence’ ” (The Jewish War, p. 361). Whatever exactly may have happened, one thing is clear: in the final years before the dramatic events o
f the year 70, the Temple was enveloped in a mysterious premonition that its end was approaching. “Your house will be deserted.” Using the first person plural that is characteristic of divine utterances in the Bible (cf. Gen 1:26, for example), God himself is announcing (“Let us go hence!”) that he is to depart from the Temple, to leave it “empty”. A historic change of incalculable significance was in the air.
After this saying about the deserted house—a prophecy, not yet directly concerned with the destruction of the Temple, but rather with its inner demise, the loss of its meaning as a place of encounter between God and man—Matthew’s text continues with Jesus’ great eschatological discourse, which takes as its central themes the destruction of the Temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, the Last Judgment, and the end of the world. This discourse, found in all three Synoptic Gospels with certain variations, could perhaps be described as the most difficult text in the whole of the Gospels.
This is due in some measure to the difficulty of the content. The text refers partly to historical events that have taken place in the meantime, but mainly to a future that lies altogether beyond time and reality as we know it: indeed, it brings them to an end. A future is proclaimed that exceeds our categories yet can only be represented using models drawn from our experience, and they are inevitably inadequate for the purpose. This explains why Jesus, speaking as he always does in continuity with the Law and the Prophets, presents this material using a tissue of scriptural allusions, within which he locates the new element of his mission, the mission of the Son of Man.
Jesus of Nazareth: From His Transfiguration Through His Death and Resurrection Page 3