August 15th, 2020

This Sunday we are back in Isaiah, the Old Testament book that gets a lot of attention in the New Testament. Short sayings from this book come up often in the four gospel accounts. And this Sunday’s text [Isaiah 56:1,6-8] contains another example of that.

Jesus, during the last week of his life, when he cleanses the temple, quotes from this section of Isaiah and says, at least in one of the accounts, ‘my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations (a portion of verse 7).’ I think it is fascinating to look at what happens after that in the three most similar gospel accounts; here are some literal translations of those texts:

And he says to them, ‘It has been written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you yourselves are making it a den of robbers. And blind and lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But the chief priests and the scribes, seeing the marvels which he did and the children crying in the temple and saying, ‘Hosanna to the son of David,’ they were angry and said to him, ‘Do you hear what these are saying?’ And Jesus says to them, ‘Yes, have you never read that out of the mouth of infants and nursing ones you prepared praise (Matthew 21:13-16)?’

And he was teaching and saying to them, ‘It has been written, has it not, that my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations? But you yourselves have made it a den of robbers.’ And the chief priests and the scribes heard, and they were seeking how they might destroy him, for they feared him, for all the crowd was amazed (extremely literally, ‘filled out’) at his teaching (Mark 11:17-18).

And entering into the temple, he began to throw out the ones selling, saying to them, ‘It has been written, “And my house shall be a house of prayer”, but you yourselves made it a den of robbers.’ And he was teaching day by day in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes were seeking to destroy him, along with the first men of the people, and they did not find what they might do, for all the people hung upon hearing him (Luke 19:45-48).

These three similar accounts are similar in a lot of things, but when it comes to a response about what the temple is, there will be a variety because the authority that is connected to the temple is closely connected to the authority of Jesus, and each of the four accounts give a different emphasis regarding the authority of Jesus.

One of the differences in the texts above is in terms of verb tense. (I hope that this does not bring up bad memories of English class!) Immediately after Jesus quotes the text from Isaiah, there are differences in the action of the temple being made a den of robbers. In the first reading, Jesus says that you ARE MAKING it a den of robbers—a present action.’ In the second, Jesus says that you HAVE MADE it a den of robbers—this may be understood as a past action with some sort of enduring results. In the third, Jesus says that you MADE it a den of robbers—a simple past action.

If you are about to ask which of these Jesus really said, I cannot answer that question. I was not there with a recording device when it happened. Perhaps he said all three. The point of him having said these words in three different ways gives three different perspectives to the issue at hand. Jesus has three different types of authority in these three gospel accounts, and each type of authority ultimately emphasizes a different aspect of his wonderful act of salvation.

By Jesus saying that they ARE now making the temple a den of robbers, I would consider that the most serious accusation. The implication is that they should stop immediately what they are doing. But the text immediately stops our focus on this topic, and it turns toward something else that is quite serious as well. Jesus begins to heal people, people who are usually looked down upon. And the anger of the religious leaders is attributed to the effect of Jesus upon other people—the people who were healed, but also the little children—and these are people who are literally looked down upon!

By Jesus saying that they HAVE MADE the temple a den of robbers, that is also a very serious accusation. One way to describe the action of the verb is to say that the action was in the past, but that action continues to have ramifications and some influence. And there is nothing else that Jesus does that gets in the way. The religious leaders want him dead, simply on the basis of those words that he said. It also says that the leaders feared Jesus—although they will fear the crowd in the next chapter (see 12:12). In this text the focus is definitely on Jesus and what he said. He is standing alone, and all authority is ultimately his.

Finally, by Jesus saying that they simply MADE the temple a den of robbers, this is only an action in the past. And that one statement does not seem to cause a big problem. The story, in a way, ends here. The next verse summarizes his teaching in the temple, and the religious leaders, like above, want him dead, and the text gives a reason for this not happening, because ‘the people hung upon hearing him’. Jesus’ authority reaches out to people, and people reach out to him and, somewhat figuratively, ‘hang’ on him.
The way these religious leaders are described in the third example is unusual. They ‘were seeking’ and they ‘did not find’. Perhaps that is a way to describe what others are going through, especially when you look at the book of Acts.

Whatever account you look at, the religious leaders are getting angry. But they end up being angry for different reasons. In Matthew, it was because of people. In Mark, it was because of Jesus’ words of the text. In Luke, it was because of his teaching elsewhere, him being a support. Jesus is certainly a multi-faceted bundle of good news.