Wesley Menke

Sermon 14 November 2021

So Jesus went to the temple with his disciples. This is near the end of his earthly ministry according to the Gospel of Mark. He teaches while in the temple and interacts with the people who are therein. When they are leaving the temple the disciples marvel at how beautiful it is, and how large stones are stacked upon one another to create it. Jesus tells them that a day is coming when the temple would be completely ruined. We are fairly certain that in fact the temple was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 ce. This would have been about another 30 – 40 years after Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The destruction of the temple happened so close to the time of Jesus that most scholars of the Bible believe that the gospels were almost certainly all written after that destruction. In other words Christianity was so fresh, so in its infancy that there weren’t written gospels for decades after Jesus’ earthly life. There were spoken traditions. There were collections of Jesus’ teachings, but by the time leaders in the church sat down and said, “We’ve got to write this all down” the destruction of the temple had already happened. 

Why did the destruction of the temple happen? It happened because there was a Jewish uprising; a revolt against Rome. So the Roman army totally destroyed the temple. This is what is called the Pax Romana; totally destroy the spiritual core of your enemy, then you have peace. Of course nobody would ever try to use that same strategy today. Would they? Rome issued a coin with an image of the temple being crushed under a Roman Sandal with tears pouring out. This went all over the empire as a “Gospel” or “Evangelical” message. Don’t mess with Rome.

This tells us that at the time of Jesus there was already this possibility.There were zealots and sicarii that would do violent acts against their enemies and especially the Romans to stir up trouble and to try to start a rebellion. They wanted political and spiritual freedom from Rome. In fact, when Jesus is standing trial, this very fear and concern is what likely led to his death. Some of the religious leaders said, “It is better for one person to die, than for the whole people to be destroyed.” Jesus made the leadership extremely nervous because they thought he would lead a rebellion. Right before Jesus is sentenced to death, he has an opportunity to be released, but that favor is given to Barabbas. Barabbas was a known violent zealot or sicarii. What if Barabbas helped to lead that rebellion some years later?

Sociologists have a term for when a group of people decide that in order to save themselves they must destroy one of their own. It’s called the scapegoat principle. From the dawn of time groups of people, when they face a crisis and their group identity and cohesion is tested, will identify someone deemed to be the cause of their strife, and will either kill them or expel them from the group believing that it will save them, their integrity, or purity. 

The most terrifying thing