Lent: Jesus is Tender and Fierce

So it's our third week in Lent, these 40 days leading us up to Good Friday and Easter.

And this morning we're looking at John chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

At the beginning of John chapter 2, Jesus is at that wedding where he turns the water into wine, which was an extreme act of compassion to this wedding party because it would have been a huge embarrassment to run out of wine at a party, as you can only imagine.

John 2 · chapter mention

And just when we think that, you have a handle on this Jesus, this compassionate, loving Jesus, we get John 2, 12.

And so let's reread this passage that Courtney read for us.

My version is a little bit different on the screen, but you'll hang with me.

Verse 12.

After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples.

There they stayed for a few days.

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheeps and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

So he made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle.

He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

To those who sold doves, he said, Get these out of here.

Stop turning my father's house into a market.

The point number one is this that Jesus is tender and Jesus is fierce.

Jesus is both of these things.

Do you remember that conversation between Lucy and the other kids and Mr.

Beaver and Mrs.

Beaver in the Chronicles of Narnia?

I always remember this conversation.

Here's a picture of them from the movie Lucy is the girl on the far right.

Mr.

Beaver's obviously on the right.

And then the other kiddos.

Pretty explanatory.

Here's the conversation.

Is he a man?

asked Lucy.

Aslan a man?

Remember, Aslan's the lion symbolizes Jesus in the story.

Aslan a man, said Mr.

Beaver sternly.

Certainly not.

I tell you, he is the king of the wood and the son of the great emperor beyond the sea.

Don't you know who's the king of beasts?

Aslan is a lion, the lion, the great lion.

Oh, said Susan.

I thought he was a man.

Is he quite safe?

I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.

That you will, dearie, and make no mistake, said Mrs.

Beaver.

If there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else just silly.

Then he isn't safe, said Lucy.

Safe?

said Mr.

Beaver.

Don't you hear what Mrs.

Beaver tells you?

Who said anything about safe?

Of course he isn't safe, but he's good.

He's the king, I tell you.

And the point is that Jesus is so good that he will disrupt our lives to lead us to places of growth and to places of healing and places of freedom.

Now in John 2, Jerusalem at the time had about 80,000 residents.

And at festival time, that population would swell to 300,000 to 500,000 people.

Everyone was coming to the city, to the temple, to bring their sacrifices and make their money offerings.

So they needed to exchange money and they needed to purchase animals.

So some of this passage makes sense, but then obviously something was really, really wrong.

And so Jesus shows up, he's standing in front of the temple.

The temple probably looks something like this at the time.

Massive, gleaming house of God, and Jesus shows up, and there's complete consumerism where the temple is, and he goes nuts, right?

He makes the whip and he tears the place apart.

So Jesus is tender, and Jesus is also fierce.

About a month ago, I watched the documentary Quarterback on Netflix.

Has anybody watched Quarterback on Netflix, right?

Patrick Mahones, do we have Mahones fans?

No, no Mahones fans.

We are so tired of him winning.

Like we're just like, no, not a fan.

Not a fan of that much winning.

Some winnings, fine.

Too much, we're done.

Marcus Mariota was also on there, a Falcons quarterback.

I learned we had uh Atlanta had a pro football team.

I didn't know if you did you know that?

I learned that during the documentary.

So we do, apparently.

They play in Atlanta some Sundays.

And then lastly, uh the third quarterback was Kirk Cousins from the Minnesota Vikings.

And I fell in love with Kirk Cousins.

Anybody else?

You watched it and you're like, I'm in love with him.

I am.

I'm pretty sure we'd be best friends if we knew each other, if he gave me a chance, it could happen.

He's like pounding weights, he's working hard, he's dominating, like on the field, he's amazing.

And then the next moment he's in like fun mode and his shirt's off and he's leaving the whole stadium like in the pregame chant in Minnesota.

And then we get in the middle of the documentary, suddenly we get to see him go from fierce competitor, fierce, to a tender father.

Let's watch this.

But you know, it hurt to walk off of our field in front of our fans we had and not want that game.

That hurts.

It hurts.

Um I'm probably missing one, but this is probably the toughest loss I've had in my career.

So it hurts.

The plays that you go back and beat yourself up over is just uh mystery.

There weren't a ton, but there were probably three.

Walk around your house and you're like, oh, that hurts.

You comfy?

You should sleep well tonight because you didn't get a great nap, but it's nine o'clock.

Alrighty.

Jesus, thanks for uh today.

Thanks for protecting Dad and his football game and through this football season.

And um thanks for mommy and for Turner for the great family we have.

And God, we uh continue to just give the days ahead to you and trust you for uh what's up ahead.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

I mean, y'all ready to move to Minnesota?

Is he coming here?

Could be?

Oh, Lord Almighty.

Don't even get oh, the heart got a little hot.

He's he's fierce, but he's not just fierce, and he's tender, but he's not just tender.

We love him because he's like all of this, and it's amazing to see this fullness of character.

And it's that's just an image.

That's just an image of Christ.

Just an image, an imperfect image of this fullness of character that we have.

Now, now imagine hundreds of thousands of people walking these paths up to Jerusalem.

They're exhausted, and they're coming for one thing.

They're coming for forgiveness.

They're coming to bring their sacrifice, their offering, so that they can be forgiven by God.

And they get there, and there's a shopping mall.

Verse 16 to those who sold doves, he said, get these out of here.

Stop turning my father's house into a market.

Jesus' anger is toward the barriers that people are putting in place of broken people just trying to find relief and forgiveness.

The church is the place where we just give away forgiveness.

Like it should be lavish, it should be radical, it should just like we just give it away.

My friend who's a pastor, he says there's only one rule here for church leaders: don't use the church to sell crap.

He uses the worst word, but I'm not that edgy.

Play it safe.

I don't want any extra emails during the week.

Now, I don't think that's legalistic.

Like maybe a church sells coffee, or maybe a church sells we sell some books on a book table and some t-shirts every once in a while.

The point is that a church does not systematically use the church to sell stuff to people for other people to make profit.

The church has to remain in a purity of freely dispensing forgiveness and righteousness to all those who are weary.

There's a story in John 11 where Jesus' friend Lazarus dies, and Jesus sees Mary crying.

And we get John 11, verse 33 and 38.

John 11:33

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb.

It was a cave, and the stone lay against it.

So two different times we see great emotion from Jesus.

Some versions say that Jesus groaned in spirit.

The revised version says Jesus was moved with indignation.

So it's more than sadness.

It's actually anger.

He's actually incredibly angry.

Benjamin Warfield, who's a professor of theology at Princeton in the early 1900s, he wrote an article called The Emotional Life of Our Lord.

And he says the most demonstrated emotion that Jesus has, that we see over and over again, the most demonstrated is compassion.

Hands down, compassion.

But then we get these little glimpses, these little stories every once in a while, where he's angry.

Warfield says the emotion here in John 11, the emotion which tore his breast and clamored for attention and utterance was just rage.

He's fired up.

Jesus burned with anger toward death, toward sin.

Because he came to save us from those things.

These things cause brokenness and destruction.

And in his righteousness and justice, he burns with anger toward them.

And in this way, Jesus' emotions of anger are actually love.

He has fierce love for us.

Because he knows and he wants the whole of our lives.

And he knows that's the only way in which we are truly joyful and peaceful.

Point number two is that Jesus holds righteous anger toward that which limits God's glory and our heart's freedom.

A few Fridays ago, in the morning, I went to run the mountain and I started up the trail.

Beautiful winter morning day.

It was sunny out.

I had my chain and chain worship on.

I'm running up the trail.

I'll get to that point about where the guy stole my Patagonia vest.

Remember that story?

It's always in my mind.

Just waiting to see that guy on the trail.

What kind of anger, righteous anger will come out.

So I'm not paying a lot of attention when I get to a rock, and there's like a about an 18-inch step down.

And I'm moving like kind of half speed, and it just it looked like all leaves, like completely flat.

And so I'm like half speed and I just step down, but I missed that there was one rock right in the middle, and I stepped and I I mean I could I heard it.

Like I heard it, fell down, old man fall.

Like I just, old man fell down, bad, hurt, the pain shoots up, and then my left knee hits another rock on the way down.

I actually took a picture of it to prove to my wife how tough I am.

There it is.

You know, I want her to keep thinking of me as tough.

I was like, look what I survived.

You know, look at that.

So uh I survived.

My ankle is okay.

I did survive.

All right, my leg did not cut into the rock.

Clearly.

My leg did not cut into the rock.

The rock cut into my leg.

Now here's what this has to do with God.

The word glory, glory to God, all to God's glory, everything we do for God's glory.

We say this word all the time in church.

This word glory means weight or density.

That's the imagery of glory.

It's weight, density.

When we come up against God, we don't cut into God.

God cuts into us.

In his disruptive love, his glory disrupts our motives and thinking and desires.

So he's tender, like an abba, like a papa.

But he's fierce.

And that fierceness is because he's so for us.

He's on a mission to disrupt anything in us.

Our sin, our destruction, our idolatries, our woundedness.

He wants to cut into that.

We're free and we're still learning how free God wants us to be.

Now it's also possible maybe you're angry.

Right?

You're angry at your mom or your dad, you're angry at your kid.

Don't get me started about your kid, right?

Like you're angry about that, you're angry about your friends, or you thought she was your friend, and then she did that thing, you thought he was, and that happened.

You're angry about work, you're angry about that sickness, you're angry about some disappointment, you're angry about a death.

You're angry you're not skinnier or taller or shorter, or you wanted brown hair, you got blonde hair, you got gray hair.

Wish you still had the brown hair.

I wish I never got biceps.

Some of y'all got biceps?

You get that?

Like we all have something to be angry about.

We all do.

Ephesians 4.26 says, in your anger, do not sin.

Now, most of my anger is just sin.

It's just self-my self-absorbed plan being disturbed by other people is what it is.

But there's another type of anger, righteous anger that's birthed out of concern for others or God or the injustices of the world.

And this anger that is birthed in love, it should stay and it must stay in love.

But no matter what, when we're angry, it calls us to reflect.

Some growth in question, growth and grace questions that I was asking myself this week are this.

Am I living in toxic reactivity or in the calm, non-anxious presence God calls me to?

Is there anything I need to repent of?

Is there anything I need to reconcile with someone else?

Now, if I'm angry, usually I'm afraid of something or I'm sad about something.

So a few other questions.

If I'm angry, what am I afraid of?

If I'm angry, what am I sad about?

And then am I seeking relief in the news of the world?

Some good news I'm just waiting on from work, or good news from a friend, or good news from school, or good news from the news.

Am I waiting on that to give me relief?

Or am I ultimately primarily using the news of my secure belovedness in Christ?

Where do I seek relief?

Back to John 2, verse 17.

John 2:17

His disciples remembered that it is written, Zeal for your house will consume me.

The Jews then responded to him, What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?

So the Jews wanted him to prove his authenticity with the sign.

Verse 19, Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.

They replied, It has taken us 46 years to build this temple.

And you're gonna raise it in three days?

But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

So he's already talking about the cross and the resurrection.

22.

When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

The Jews are thinking about their building and what they constructed with their efforts to God, and Jesus is talking about himself.

Point number three is this Jesus is the temple, he's the priest, he's the altar, he's the sacrifice.

He's essentially saying, I'll be the sacrifice, so you don't have to keep maintaining all of these religious rules and sacrifices as to earn God's forgiveness.

We have this statement in our communion liturgy prayer.

We've been praying it for 11 years now.

Maybe you recognize it.

It's the last sentence of our prayer.

All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ, who made the perfect, complete, final sacrifice, all that was needed to take away the sins of the whole world, and to satisfy your just demands in full.

Amen.

Jesus satisfies all of God's just demands.

So any of his righteous anger toward our own destruction and sin that we cause is satisfied in Jesus.

And he takes away all of our sins, all our sins put upon Jesus, all his righteousness given to us.

So this means that all your shoulds are they are complete in Jesus.

And all of God's righteous anger is satisfied in Jesus.

And Jesus is saying, no more self-reliant journeys of you bringing your own sacrifices to earn God's love.

So what does this mean?

What does it mean?

Well, I think it means this.

I think it means he is fiercely for you.

And at times that feels like compassion, and at times that feels like a lot of disruption.

And it means that you're not a worker trying to earn his love.

You are a child that receives his love.

Listen to how Pastor Tim Keller words us being God's children by grace and not by works.

And I close with this.

But don't you see what it means to receive rights as children of God?

You're not on the spectrum, you're off the spectrum.

Your identity is received, not achieved.

Your identity is rooted in God's love for you, and the fact that God is now your father, not just your boss, not just your king.

He is that.

But he's your father.

There's an unconditionality, as it were, to his regard for you.

That is so different from any other kind of identity.

You've got a new identity, and it's remarkable.

It's nothing like anything that you've ever had before.

You get your identity in Christ, and then you realize you've become who you are, who you really are, who you were made to be.

Let's pray together.

God, we come before you.

You are the Abba Father, and we are your children, not workers to earn your love, not those making the journey to Jerusalem to make our own sacrifices and purchase them.

But we are here with open hands because Jesus is enough for us.

Help us to see you in a bigger and a greater way, that you are compassion and you also have anger.

You are tender and you are fierce.

And you are fiercely for us.

For so many of us that actually have anger in our own hearts.

Would you help us bring it before you?

And that we would not sin in our anger.

Help us to be your children, to trust you as a Abba, to let you be tender with us, to let you cut us open, and to do the hard work that you want to do inside of us.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.