Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

Certainly Jesus would scarcely have said these things about the temple at the time of the action itself. The temple saying fits much better in a situation in which he was accosted by representatives of the Council on account of the action that had already taken place. As Mark 11:27-33 shows, there was such a situation the very next day. During the temple action itself Jesus must have spoken more directly and less enigmatically. What Mark reports as happening at that time fits much better: “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for the nations?’ But you have made it a den of robbers” (Mark 11:17). The words “den of robbers” are in Jeremiah’s temple speech (Jer 7:1-15): the sacrifices in the temple must correspond to a just society; otherwise God can no longer dwell in this place, and the temple will be destroyed.

The phrase “house of prayer for [all] nations” is from the last ten chapters of Isaiah (specifically Isa 56:7). The immediate context speaks of the gathering of Israel (Isa 56:8), and the broader context describes the pilgrimage of the nations to the eschatological Jerusalem (Isa 60) and the glory of the city newly rebuilt by God (Isa 62). So the words with which the temple action is accompanied in Mark’s gospel echo both the prophets’ sharp critique of the temple and their vision of it in the end time. Then the symbolic action in the court of the Gentiles would not have been fundamentally directed against the temple as such but against everything that did not correspond to the holiness of the eschatological temple.

In connection with Jesus’ proclamation of the reign of God that, of course, meant that the eschatological temple is beginning now. Now God is requiring holiness in his house, and it is Jesus himself through whom God is creating the new temple. Thus the temple action and the temple saying are subject to the radical “today” that shapes Jesus’ whole message and practice. Because the reign of God is already breaking in and the new creation of Israel has already begun, the business of the temple in its present form cannot continue. The hour of the eschatological temple has arrived.

Did Jesus make a concrete image of this new eschatological temple for himself? We do not know; all we can be sure about is that the early Christian communities after Easter very quickly came to regard themselves as the eschatological temple, a sanctuary built of living stones.¹¹ They did so long before the temple was finally destroyed by the Romans in the year 70.

The Sadducaic priestly nobility that held power in Jerusalem apparently understood quite clearly the degree to which their own image of the temple was being called into question by Jesus. Just as in the case of the Torah the issue was not merely one of marginal questions about the interpretation of the Law, so here it was not simply about marginal issues regarding the temple area—for example, whether the money changers and dove sellers should not be carrying on their business in the city instead of being in the outer courts of the temple. Rather, it was about Jesus’ right to see the cult in Jerusalem wholly in light of his message about the reign of God, and thus also his right to intervene. That is precisely what was so emphatically contested by the high priests, the scribes, and the elders, that is, the Council (or Sanhedrin), the highest religious authority in Israel.

The Last Meal

Luke, before describing the institution of the Eucharist, records the following words of Jesus: “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15). The saying makes it clear that Jesus knows what is coming. He will suffer; he will be killed. For that very reason this last meal he will celebrate with the Twelve has a special significance for him. Jesus’ whole longing rests on this meal. It was not just any meal, but the Passover feast. That is how Luke sees it, and so do Mark and Matthew also.

Because Jesus sees his death coming, he has to give it an interpretation.¹² The Passover meal itself gave him the opportunity to do so, because this very meal was and had been from ancient times saturated with signs, references, and interpretations. There were the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread, the lamb, and the cup of blessing (later numbered as the third cup). The meal made present the exodus from Egypt and looked forward in hope to the Messiah. An ancient Aramaic interpretive word over the unleavened bread read, “See, this is the bread of affliction that our ancestors had to eat when they came out of Egypt.”¹³