Warm and Fuzzy Jesus

A Reflection on the Gospel for Sunday, March 3rd, 2024:
Third Sunday of Lent

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John
2:13-25

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body.

After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about human nature, for he himself knew what was within the human person.

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

First impressions affect long-term perceptions. As a child, I learned in religion class that Jesus was my friend, my brother, someone who could relate to me and meet me wherever I was in my life. I refer now to this persona as “warm and fuzzy Jesus.” It's a cheeky shorthand, but also simple and evocative—you understand what I mean when I say it. When I use this phrase, I don't mean to denigrate the existence or importance of nurturing and tolerance, especially in Our Saviour. I am profoundly grateful that Jesus perfects both of those qualities and that He is beside me even though, in comparison to Him, I am lowly. However, when we limit our understanding of Jesus to being only nurturing and tolerant, we miss His other, equally important characteristics.

While warm and fuzzy was how I perceived Jesus as a child, I recall clearly that my grandmother’s image of Him was radically different. She thought of Jesus first and foremost as “Our Lord”; and the first person of the Trinity she referred to always as “the Almighty God.” The Three Persons were majestic, powerful, supreme. 

There was a time when I struggled to recognize the Jesus of my childhood as the actor in the Gospel for this coming Sunday. John’s description is dramatic: “making a whip of cords, He drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.” How could I reconcile Jesus—my friend, my brother—with this angry man who sent people scurrying away in fear, who whipped animals and turned over tables? This was not warm and fuzzy Jesus. This was someone I didn’t know: angry Jesus.

​The Old Testament says that our God is a jealous God—jealous, mind, not envious. John's Gospel depicts Jesus’ righteous anger for the misuse of the temple, God's dwelling place, by those who would put avarice above service and self-interest above devotion to God. Jesus’ message is clear: such things must be driven out.

Then I thought: if Jesus so jealously protects the sanctity of a brick and mortar temple, how much more will He protect me and my own holiness? For, as Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians tells us, our bodies are temples. 

When I am under attack by forces that would use me in my weakness as a means to achieve their sinful ends, how grateful I am for a Jesus who will cleanse this temple with the same force and righteous anger as He did the Great Temple. That temple was made of stone, but we are His own creations, carved on the palm of the hand of the Almighty God. He will not allow evil to occupy the space within us that He has claimed for Himself. 

And now, when I think of Jesus driving out the forces that would mire me in sin and drag me from Him, I see that this Jesus and my own warm and fuzzy Jesus are one and the same.




Donna Davis

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