The first Pascha (Passover).

Driving out the merchants from the Temple.

(John 2:13-25).

The first three Evangelists do not narrate quite clearly on the Lord’s stay in Jerusalem. Their detailed description is of the Passover only, which was on the eve of Christ’s suffering. Only Saint John gives us sufficient details about the Lord’s every visit of Jerusalem at Pascha - over all three years of His public ministry — as well as His visits to this city on some other feast days. It was totally natural for the Lord to appear in Jerusalem on important feast days, because all the spiritual life of the Jewish people was concentrated there. On those days, people from all over Palestine, as well as other countries, gathered there, and it was exactly for this reason that it was important for the Lord to reveal Himself as the Messiah.

The ejection of merchants from the Temple, narrated by John at the beginning of His Gospel, is not the same eviction as described by the other three Evangelists. The first event occurred at the beginning of Christ’s public ministry, while the last ejection (which in reality, there could have been several), took place at the end of His ministry, before the 4^th Passover.

As can be seen further, the Lord in the company of His Disciples travelled from Capernaum to Jerusalem. But this time, it was not simply because of obligations to the law, but in order to render the will of His Sender — so as to continue the Messianic service that had commenced in Galilee. At the feast day of Passover, up to two million Jews gathered in Jerusalem, who were obliged to kill a Paschal lamb and bring a sacrifice to God in the Temple. According to the witness of Joseph Flavius, in the year 63 AD, on the day of Jewish Passover, some 256,500 lambs were given to the priests for slaying, not counting minor livestock and birds. For the sake of ease in selling such a large volume of animals, the Jews converted an area so called “courtyard of the heathen,” into a market-place; here, they gathered the sacrificial animals, placed cages with birds, erected shop-fronts for the sale of merchandise essential to sacrificial offerings and set up money-exchange centres. At the time, the official money in circulation was Roman, while the law demanded that contributions to the temple be in Jewish shekels. The Jews arriving for Passover were forced to change their money, and this exchange brought great profits for the moneychangers. Striving for maximum profits, the Jews traded (in the temple’s courtyard) in other items that had nothing to do with sacrificial offerings eg. oxen. The high priests themselves were active in breeding doves for their sale at inflated prices.

The Lord, having made a whip out of ropes (that were apparently used to restrain stock) drove the lambs and oxen out of the temple, overturned the money-changers’ tables, scattering their coin, and walking up to those who sold doves, said: “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” Thus, for the first time, in calling God His Father, Jesus declared Himself publicly as the Son of God. Nobody had the audacity to oppose the Divine authority of the act, because apparently John’s witness of Him as a Messiah had already reached Jerusalem, and as can be seen - the traders’ consciences began to articulate. Only when He reached the doves (thereby affecting the self-interests of the high priests) did He receive a query: “What sign do you show to us, since you do these things?” Jesus answered and said: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Furthermore, as the Evangelist explains further, what Christ had in mind was the “temple of His Body” i.e. what He wanted to say with this is: You are asking for a sign from Me — it will be given to you, but only not now: when you destroy the temple of My Body, I shall raise it up in three days and this should serve as a sign of that authority, with which I am doing this.

The high priests didn’t understand that with these words, Jesus predicted His Own death, destruction of His body and His resurrection from the dead on the third day. They took His words regarding the temple —literally, and attempted to provoke the people against Him.

Besides, the Greek verb” agaro,” translated into Slavonic “raise up,” actually means “awaken” and therefore in no way can it be applied to the destruction of a building. It pertains far more to a body immersed in sleep. Naturally, the Lord was referring to His Body as the temple, because it contained His Divinity; and finding Himself in a temple building, it was especially natural for the Lord Jesus Christ to refer to His Body as a temple. Each time, when the Pharisees demanded some type of sign from the Lord, He told them that they will see no other signs but that which He called the Prophet Jonah sign - resurrection after three days of interment. In the light of this, the Lord’s words directed at the Jews could be understood thus: is it not enough for you to desecrate the house of My Father, erected by hand, by making it a house of merchandise? Your hatred is leading you to crucify Me and kill My body; carry this out and then you will see such a sign that will paralyse all My enemies with fear — I shall raise up My dead and buried body in three days.

However, seizing upon the literal meaning of Christ’s words, the Jews attempted to make them absurd and impossible to fulfil. They pointed to the fact that the temple — pride of the Jews — took 46 years to build, so how can it be raised up in three days? The dialogue here is about the restoration of the temple that Herod built. Construction began in 734 from establishment of Rome, ie. 15 years before the birth of Christ, and the 46^th year falls on the 780^th year from the establishment of Rome — the first Passover mentioned in the Gospel. Even His Disciples did not understand His words until after the Lord’s resurrection from the dead and “And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.”

Further on, the Evangelist states that during the currency of the feast of Pascha, the Lord performed miracles, and those that witnessed them, believed in Him. However, “Jesus did not commit Himself to them,” ie. did not count on them or their faith, for inasmuch as their faith was based on miracles only, they lacked warmth of love toward Christ and therefore could not be regarded as stable. The Lord “knew all men” and as the Almighty God, “knew what was in men” — what was hidden in the depths of everyone’s soul, and therefore, did not trust the words of those, who upon seeing His miracle, professed their faith in Him.