Three temple visits

Holy Week , that week during which Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey while crowds called out Hosanna, was also the week where he turned over the tables of the money changers, the week of the Last supper, the week where he was betrayed and where he agonised in the Garden of Gesthemane,. He was denied by Peter, put on trial, and crucified. That week was preceded by a build up of momentum over many weeks particularly as he began to appear more publicly in open conflict and debate with the Scribes and Pharisees, and where he was questioned by the many that followed him, wanting to know if he was indeed the Christ.
But there was a certain particular activity that was significant to Jesus, and that was to do with the temple.

In the last months of his ministry Jesus placed an intense focus on the Temple. He made three visits to the temple from the month of November through to March the next year. The first visit was to the feast of Tabernacles, the second to the feast of Dedication (Hanukkah), and the third was to confront the money changers before the Feast of Passover when he was crucified.
The temple was the place where God had ordained in the OT that he would meet with his people – this was his habitation. This was paramount for Jesus, who was in fact the living breathing walking temple who knew that his death and resurrection would mean that the material temple, called in Scripture the temple made with hands would no longer be where God met with his people. His temple would be us as the temple of the Holy Spirit just as Jesus had become this habitation of God in his own body while he was on the earth. Jesus is quoted in the New Testament as saying a Body you have prepared for me.

So each temple visit was not just a visit to church as a good religious Jew – no – Jesus had a distinct purpose for each visit because they were about what was happening to him, and about what would be happening to us – the new temple to be.

The first Temple visit was a secret visit when he attended the Feast of Tabernacles. This feast celebrated the miracle of the living water that flowed from out of the rock in the wilderness – the rock that Moses struck with his rod (Exodus 17:34). In the NT the Bible says ‘That rock was Christ). His visit to the Feast of Tabernacles was when Jesus stood and invited everyone to come to him to receive the Living Water, thus prophetically declaring the mystery of his being that Rock, and that after he suffered for us on the Cross he would send the living water of the Holy Spirit to flow out of us.
John 7:37 On that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink, he who believes in Me.” As the Scripture has said, “Out of His heart will flow rivers of living water.” (The Temple Ezek 47, and the Rock Exodus 17, Zech 14). He was speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive (embrace)

The story behind the story. You can read it all in John ch 7. It starts off with Jesus staying in Galilee with his family and they were all preparing to go to the Feast of Tabernacles, and Jesus' brothers urged him to go to the temple for the feast.
"Go where more people can see your miracles!" they were mocking him. "You can't be famous when you hide like this! If you're so great, prove it to the world!" - even his brothers didn't believe in him.
Jesus just said "It is not the right time for me to go now. But you can go anytime and it will make no difference, for the world can't hate you; but it does hate me, because I accuse it of sin and evil. You go on, and I'll come later when it is the right time." So he remained in Galilee.
But after his brothers had left for the feast, then he went too, secretly, staying out of the public eye, and avoiding the crowds. He ended up taking the back roads to Jerusalem, and on his way to the temple he would have passed many hundreds of tents camped upon the hillsides because thousands of people gathered on these hills for the week of the feast.

The feast had a closing ceremony on the 7th day and the main feature was the drawing of the living water commemorating the living water that God had provided for them at the Rock in their wilderness travels.

He arrived in Jerusalem on the fourth day of the feast and went to the temple and began teaching and discussing Scripture and answering questions from the people, who were amazed and raved about his teaching (verses 14-30). They asked one another how he could have unfolded the Scriptures to them the way he did when he had not been formally taught.

People danced and sang as the water drawing ceremonies and rituals were acted out each morning. Women would get water from the surrounding springs and wells in their water pitchers and take them up to the temple singing with the men and the children from Isa 12:13 ‘Therefore with joy you SHALL DRAW WATER FROM THE WELLS OF SALVATION.
On the seventh day of the feast, the GREAT DAY of the feast, as the huge golden water bowl was carried by the people up the temple steps, the huge crowd stood around watching and cheering, amidst the trumpet blasts sounding out. This was the consecration ceremony of the sacred water, the high point of the feast.

At the top of the temple steps was a special altar with a priest selected by the Sadducees, waiting for the big moment to arrive. When the bowl was presented to him he would raise his hand to indicate that the call was about to be made for people to ‘Come, you who thirst, drink of the water’.
This would have been the moment, when the priest raised his hand, that Jesus would have stood in front of the crowd and called out in a strong loud voice; If anyone thirsts and believes in me let him come and drink. Those words that Jesus said this at that particular time in front of all the Jewish pilgrims from all over the Middle East, Asia Minor and Greece would have hit their ears like a thunderclap. Everybody would have known whose cry it was, and many would have seen its significance, namely that Jesus had come to embody all that past experience in the wilderness. The Scriptures tell us (verses 40-44) that division and argument broke out amongst the crowd. Many in the crowd said ‘This is The Prophet’ while others said ‘This is The Christ’, while others said ‘Would The Christ ever come out of Galilee?’

The temple police officers said ‘no one has ever spoken like this man. Jesus had turned their historic feast into a proclamation of their (and our) salvation, our present faith, and our future hope, an astounding fulfillment of prophecy.
The Pharisees and Sadducees were furious – calling on the temple police to stop him and arrest him but they couldn’t take hold of him. Nicodemus defended Jesus saying the Law couldn’t judge unless people have heard what the man has to say (vs.50). The officers came back and said ‘we couldn’t arrest him, and ‘besides, no man has ever spoken like this before.’

The problem for Israel in the wilderness was their thinking God was not with them, but God kept showing up for them time after time. It can be the same with us. That is why Jesus was so emphatic that he was the one always with us, like the Rock that was always with them, following them in the wilderness.

The second Temple visit was an open visit when he attended the Feast of Hanukkah. Hanukkah is the feast of the re-dedication of the Temple at Jerusalem. This feast is not mentioned in the Old Testament as it occurred between the time of the last book (Malachi), and before the time of Jesus. However it is mentioned in the New Testament. It came in November/December just after the Feast of Tabernacles, and before the Feast of Passover in March/April of the next year.
John 10:22 Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the Temple, in Solomon's porch. Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

The Feast of Hanukkah, or Feast of Dedication was instituted in 165 BC when Israel defeated the armies of Antiochus Epiphanes who had violated and blasphemously desecrated the Temple ten years earlier. The yrevived it and restored it – they resurrected it.
The enemy violated and blasphemously struck down Jesus as the living Temple but Father resurrected him. The enemy has attacked and violated the living temple of God’s people over the years and left it spoiled and weakened but God has visited his people and revived and restored them. Today’s church is in great need of the revival and restoration through a work of The Holy Spirit in these days so that we can celebrate the grace and power of an outpouring of his Holy Spirit.

The feats of Passover
Jesus entered Jerusalem early in the week and rode through the main street of Jerusalem in an extravagant procession. He was riding in royal style seated on a donkey and its colt while cheering crowds of people laid palm leaves on the ground before him and hailed him as their king. This posed an enormous threat not only to Herod who was the legal king over the Jews but it signalled a threat to the Empire. The people were urging him to establish his kingdom. The Jewish leaders also feared that Jesus would decides to rule over Jerusalem and keep on working miracles like feeding hungry multitudes and raising people from the dead. They feared He would be invincible and topple their own religious power base.
Jesus had made clear to his disciples that the procession was to be a fulfillment of a prophecy that came from
Zechariah 9:9 cry aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king is coming to you; he is righteous and able to deliver, he is humble and riding on a donkey and a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Jesus had also told everyone that he was not interested in an earthly kingdom, but that his kingdom is a spiritual one, but even many of his followers did not want to believe this.
Jesus threw the tables over in the temple that the money changers use and he chased them from the outer court area when he visited the temple that day. It was into this area where Jews from other regions came, who didn’t have the temple currency and they had to exchange their money. It was not just the money changing tables that were the problem for Jesus, because these people needed to buy turtle doves, lambs, and such things to offer sacrifices, but it was the greed and corruption. The money changers charged from twenty to three hundred percent interest. It was actually criminal.

But Jesus said that the temple was his Father’s house, and that instead of being used for prayer and wordship it was being merchandised and corrupted. His actions were not so much aggressive as they were protective. God’s wrath is most notably displayed in the earth as an act of fierce protection over what he holds as precious.

After the procession and the incident with the money changers in the temple Jesus stayed in the city and in the areas round about, teaching the crowds that followed him. This was the busiest time of the year in Jerusalem when crowds of Jews from all over the Empire were gathering for the Passover feast. Jesus came under fiercer and more intense scrutiny from the temple leaders than ever before. Questions were hurled at him to entice him into confrontation regarding moral and legal issues of their temple religion. But Jesus was not about to be baited like an animal of prey. He fielded their questions with a calm authority and it was the tormentors who became enraged by the superior wisdom and integrity of their prey to be. Crowds of Jews looked on in expectation. Many wanted a show of strength and might to come from Jesus after these thrusts and parries, for surely this was the time for him to start his kingdom. But they were to be disappointed. Jesus was on a path that would lead to a far greater demonstration of such might that the whole cosmos would be shaken by it, and he knew that even though the time was short, it was still not yet. His trial was yet to come, The cross was yet to come, and then the resurrection. And it was his prophetic statement about the Temple being destroyed and raised up again in three days that was used as blasphemy against him to condemn him at his trial.