Pigeons – Matthew 21:12-17
12 And Jesus entered the temple[a] and drove out all who
sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the
money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It
is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den
of robbers.”
14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and
he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful
things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the
Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what
these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,
“‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared
praise’?”
17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and
lodged there.
________
According to Matthew’s Gospel (from which most of our animal
mentions come in this series), immediately after Jesus enters Jerusalem, he
cleanses the Temple. This happened also
on Palm Sunday.
John also tells of Jesus cleansing the temple – in fact that
is the reading for this coming Sunday – but John puts it very early in his
Gospel, chapter 2. But this isn’t a
problem for us. This could mean that
Jesus cleansed the temple more than once – or that John wasn’t writing in
chronological order as the others were.
Mark mentions also the pigeons being sold, while Luke
mentions none of the animals at all, and John lists the sheep, oxen and
pigeons. Oh and John also mentions that
Jesus made a whip. Nice.
But zooming in on those pigeons. An animal that, perhaps because it is
relatively small and docile, seems to get lost in the menagerie of biblical
animals. What were the pigeons doing
there? They were being sold.
In Leviticus, God had prescribed an entire sacrificial
system for his people to observe and follow.
The construction and dimensions of the Tabernacle, and later the Temple
were followed with painstaking attention to detail. The priesthood was accorded specific duties
in carrying out the various ceremonies and rituals of the system. Certain feast days were prescribed. And of course, central to all of this was the
importance of sacrifices, especially animal sacrifices.
There were a number of different sacrifices for various
purposes. Some were required, some were
voluntary. Some were of grains, some of
animals. And some were entirely burned,
for some only a portion was offered.
Some were made corporately and some were made individually. I must admit, even for a pastor, it’s
difficult to fully understand the system in great detail.
But one thing is clear.
Quite a bit of blood was shed in the process. And it was serious business. The shedding of animal blood to pay for and
cover sin really begins in the Garden of Eden, when God himself first slaughter
animals to provide skins as clothing for naked Adam and Eve. That blood that was shed for them – to cover
their shame – was the first in a veritable ocean of blood shed over the years
in various sacrifices.
Abel sacrificed from his sheep. Noah sacrificed after the flood. Abraham made sacrifices. The Israelites, under Moses, received a
codified sacrificial system. A whole
tribe was designated as priests to oversee and execute the system. One might say that the whole Old Testament is
veritably soaked in blood.
But why?
Because from early on it was clear – the wages of sin is
death. And God impressed this upon his
people in a very stark way, through the deaths that came by sacrifice. But it wasn’t just a very costly and violent
object lesson – the sacrifices of the Old Testament were efficacious – they really
did deal with sin. And so thanks be to
God who provided his ancient people a way to procure the forgiveness of
sins. These were not empty rituals at
all. But they were still, in a sense,
insufficient.
We just sang a wonderfully rich hymn, “not all the blood of
beasts, on Jewish altars slain, could give the guilty conscience peace or take
away the stain”. That is to say, in and
of themselves, all these sacrifices are worthless if there isn’t something more
going on. You see, these animal
sacrifices are connected to the ultimate sacrifice, the once-and-for-all
sacrifice, the holy and precious sacrifice of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ. “A sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood
than they.”
Without Christ, all those Old Testament animals died in
vain. But inasmuch as they were
commanded by God and found the promise of forgiveness in their eventually
perfect fulfillment – they were a great blessing. And now that they are fulfilled in Christ,
that system of shedding blood has come to an end. The perfect blood of Christ has been
shed. The sacrifice is complete. It is finished. In the New Covenant in his blood, we do not
sacrifice any longer, anticipating his great sacrifice. But rather we receive a sacrament of his body
and blood – in remembrance of him – according to his words – for the
forgiveness of sins.
But back to the pigeons.
Where do they fit in? The pigeon
is a humble bird. Not a soaring eagle, a
bird of prey. Not a wise owl or majestic
peacock. They are a dime a dozen,
pigeons. Humble and lowly. God’s kind of bird.
If a sacrifice was to be made, and the person making it was
of little means – that is, if they were poor – they didn’t have to offer a
sheep or goat or bull, they could offer instead two turtledoves or two pigeons.
This is what Mary and Joseph offered when they went to the
temple with the baby Jesus. For Mary’s
purification and the redemption of Jesus as the firstborn, the Holy Family
offered the sacrifice of the poor – as we read in Luke 2 –
22 And when the time
came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up
to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the
Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”)
24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord,
“a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.”
If you cannot pay the price of a sheep or goat he gives them
a discount – give a couple of pigeons instead.
If you cannot pay the price of your own sin, He will provide the
sacrifice himself. He did it for Abraham
with the ram caught in the thicket – sparing him from sacrificing his son
Isaac. And he does it for us with
Christ, sparing us from the blood guilt on our own ledger with the holy
precious blood of Jesus. Isn’t it just like our God to both demand a sacrifice,
but they also provide the sacrifice he demands?
Christ has a special place in his heart for the poor. He blesses the poor in spirit. He commends the faith of the poor widow who
gave just her two pennies. He tells of
poor Lazarus, who went to Abraham’s bosom, while the rich man went to
Hades. He’s the same God who held Israel
accountable for treating the poor unjustly, and who calls us to care for the
poor widow and orphan.
But no matter our wealth and riches, we are all poor before
God. We have nothing to offer of any
value, and only a rotten collection of shabby works as filthy rags. But it’s best to come to God acknowledging
your sin and need, and seeing him fill it.
As Luther’s dying words scrawled on a note in his pocket remind us – “we
are all beggars, this is true”.
So here Christ cleanses the temple. He wants his Father’s house to be a house of
prayer, not a den of robbers. He doesn’t
want the poor to be cheated, but rather to have fair treatment when it comes to
their sacrifices. But even more, he
comes to fulfill all sacrifices – not with gold or silver, and not with the
blood of beasts – but with his own blood, his own life, his own self-sacrifice
for sin.
Thus he cleanses us of all corruption and iniquity. He drives out the evil from our own
midst. His Spirit claims us as his
temple. And our bodies become living
sacrifices in his service, in his kingdom.
Glory be to Jesus.
Amen.
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