TUESDAY 15 March 2022 “Surprise!” John 2:13-18

Click To Download and Print Document or PDF

Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,

Do you like surprises? Some people don’t, especially the jaw dropping kind. Did you know sometimes Jesus surprised people? Today let’s look at one of those experiences…

Yesterday we attended a Jewish wedding along with Jesus, His mother Mary, and 5 guys who were spending time with Jesus getting to know Him. John, one of those 5 guys, gave us the story of the miracle which took place when Jesus came to the rescue of the bridal couple as their reception was running out of wine. It was Jesus’ first miracle. You’ll remember yesterday I showed you it was likely only the servants who filled the jars with water, and Mary His mother, and the 5 guys with Jesus, who knew what happened. John tells us what they did next: “After this Jesus went down to Capernaum with His mother and brothers and disciples. They stayed there for a few days.” (John 2:12) I’m including a map of the region during the first century, so you can get a good orientation of the location of these towns. I urge you to familiarize yourself with it, for all the content of the first four books of the New Testament take place in the region of this map.

Now why do you suppose Jesus and His family and friends went to Capernaum? And why did John say they went ‘down‘ to Capernaum when the map clearly shows Capernaum was northeast of Cana? Now that may seem like a small thing, but it may help you to know when the Gospel writers used “up” or “down” in travel, they were talking about ELEVATION not DIRECTION. We tend to use ‘up’ when speaking of going north, direction. They used “up” when talking about a rise in the topography. You’ll notice whenever a person is traveling to Jerusalem in the New Testament, it is almost always “up” because Jerusalem is built on Mount Moriah, first mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 22, when God leads Abraham there to sacrifice Isaac.

We notice John mentions Jesus “went down to Capernaum with His mother and brothers and His disciples…”. Did you know Mary had other children beside Jesus? Mark 6:3 names them! Mark writes that the people were amazed at Jesus as He taught in the Synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth one Sabbath. Some asked: “Where did this man get this wisdom? What are these remarkable miracles He is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t His sisters here with us?” While the father of this large family is not named by Mark, we have no reason to assume it is any other than Joseph. Thus Jesus grew up in a big family! But friends, sadly, despite Jesus’ teachings and miracles, NONE of those known as His brothers and sisters believed Jesus was the Son of God until after His resurrection!

So here, as they walked from Cana to Capernaum, after the wedding, it was Mary and her family, and 5 friends of Jesus. I wonder what they talked about? My guess is Jesus and His five friends walked a little separate from Mary and her other sons, in part so the guys could ask Jesus about the water – wine experience they’d had at the wedding! In truth, the only person in this large group of people walking down the road, who had ANY idea who Jesus really was, was Mary His earthly mother. And even she had been trying to figure it all out since the day the angel Gabriel had appeared to her about 30 years before! How could this man Jesus be BOTH a normal human being, and God the Son at the same time? I wonder what you think about that my friends?

Apparently a few days later it was nearly time for the annual Passover feast and John records for us that Jesus went “up” to Jerusalem and evidently these 5 men, John, Andrew, Peter, Philip and Nathaniel, went with Him. Jerusalem would have been overcrowded to beyond anything we can imagine, for Jews would have come from all over Israel, as they did every year for this great event which celebrated their national uniqueness as Israelites, rescued by God from Egyptian slavery so many years ago. The great Temple in Jerusalem was always the highlight of any visit to Jerusalem, but for Passover it was the center of attention for everyone. John tells us Jesus went there, of course, but what happened surprised everyone! John describes it this way: “In the temple courts Jesus found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So He made a whip out of cords and drove them all from the temple courts and He scattered the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. He shouted, “get these out of here! Stop turning My Father’s house into a market!’. (John 2:13-16)

Look around my friends, what do you see and hear? It’s mayhem, it’s chaos, it’s a near riot! It’s shocking and a jaw dropping surprise! It’s also very, very significant. The great temple was a remarkable place. In the outer courtyards hundreds of people would always be walking around, some praying, some bringing animals to sacrifice on the huge altar. Over the years two big businesses had arisen here. One was the animal market where people could buy the animals they needed to offer as their sacrifices. Of course price gouging was as rampant then as now, and animal pens had moved in from outside the city to right inside the temple courts, in the name of convenience. The other was the money exchange. Offerings paid at the temple were only permitted in a unique ‘temple coin’ and thus money changers were all around exchanging the money people had from all over the Roman empire, into the ‘temple coins’. It too had become outrageously corrupt. In this place of worship designed by God for people to encounter God, human greed had defiled this place to the extreme.

While we can safely presume Jesus had come every year since He was at least 12, this was the first time He came ready to challenge the corruption and greed which had overrun the temple! Did you notice the statement John records that Jesus said on this occasion? It was powerful and brief: “Get these out of here! Stop turning MY Father’s house into a market!” As shocking as it was for animals to be running loose and coins rolling down the pavement… most shocking of all was Jesus’ claim that this grand Temple was “My Father’s house”! Everyone knew this Temple was a God designed structure and God had said His Presence would be here. (2 Chronicles 7:15,16) But no one had ever claimed this God was their Father!! People grabbed their beards, and put their hands on their heads, they stood in amazed shock. What did Jesus mean by those words?!

Jewish Temple leaders and guards came running into the chaos, and demanded answers. Some probably grabbed the trouble maker… Jesus: “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” That’s fair, don’t you think? This was the great Temple, a place where people would be expected to behave with certain decorum and respect. But don’t you find it interesting no one questioned WHO He was or WHY He claimed the God worshiped in this place was His Father? Let’s pause right here, watching this remarkable scene, and now look around our world, at the mayhem everywhere in our day. Do we see evidence of the same thing happening? People pushing God away… greed, corruption, religious tradition and rituals without any spiritual power? What does it look like where you live, my friends, as we are now only about 30 days from Easter?

And if Jesus was to physically walk into your town, into the churches in your town, what would Jesus say today about what’s happened in our world, and how far away God seems from most cities, most neighborhoods, most families, and even, sadly, too many churches? But what if Jesus surprised us? What if Jesus did today, as He did that day? What if Jesus walked in and overturned the tables of corruption and greed that are so rampant among us? What if Jesus challenged us to consider how far away we’ve pushed God? How would we respond?

Really now, in the chaos of March 2022, how much would you really like God to involve Himself in our world, our marriages, our families, our businesses, our schools, our morality, our ethics? What difference could Jesus make this Easter if we, people everywhere in our world actually INVITED Jesus to come and shake things up our world and our lives with His Easter Presence? Here’s a song that helps us consider that amazing possibility:

Today’s Scripture is John 2:13-18.

Choose below to read or listen.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

Archived back issues of “Walking with Jesus” and other resources are available by clicking here to open our ‘home page’ (or go to HOME at upper right of this page).

Share with friends. Subscribe below for daily “Walking with Jesus”.