The Beginning of His Ministry

In John 2, Jesus entered the temple for an act that would signal the beginning of his public ministry. What took place next was quite dramatic. 

“Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When he had made a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And he said to those who sold doves, ‘Take these things away! Do not make my Father’s house a house of merchandise!’ Then his disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house has eaten me up.’” (John 2:13-17, NKJV).

What Jesus did here was more than radical. If you wanted to announce your ministry, would you go into a megachurch and start turning over tables and driving people away? Jesus was up to more than just showing his authority. He was demonstrating that he was about to turn things upside down in every way.

This all happened during the Passover season. At the first Passover, Jewish families had to slay a lamb as a ritual sacrifice, draining the blood and applying it on the doorframe of their house. The idea was that when the angel of death arrived and saw the blood marking the door, he would pass over that home. It was a symbolic ritual that reenacted God’s saving deliverance of Israel from Egypt, when he set his people free from all bondage and slavery.

Now Jesus came on the scene as the Lamb of God whose sacrifice would provide our deliverance from the curse of sin. John the Baptist was aware of this, having already declared of him, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). In less than three years’ time, the world would behold Christ’s finished work as the sin of all humankind was laid upon him.