Every once in a while Tuesday's Musical Notes will take a deep dive into the depths of musical archeology (say... back to 2003) and come up with a find that must be revealed to the world or put on repeat so the world can rediscover it. Today is such a day! Welcome to Tuesday and another edition of Tuesday's Musical Notes!!! What you will find here in our excavation of the lyrical and syncopated are nuggets of musical history and artifacts of wisdom that may be life-altering.
So grab your spade, pick, and brush away the dust carefully as some of these treasures, while important and cared for in their time, are very fragile today and have only been listened to in the deep confines of the most devoted excavator's preparation rituals. A word of caution as we begin. If proper care is not followed, you could be restricted in your exploration or removed from the dig site alltogether. Either situation would certainly result in...
So grab your spade, pick, and brush away the dust carefully as some of these treasures, while important and cared for in their time, are very fragile today and have only been listened to in the deep confines of the most devoted excavator's preparation rituals. A word of caution as we begin. If proper care is not followed, you could be restricted in your exploration or removed from the dig site alltogether. Either situation would certainly result in...
Best known for "Werewolves of London", a perennial favorite at Halloween, Warren Zevon became a staple in music circles as a songwriter in the mid to late 60s, eventually breaking out as a solo artist with the record Excitable Boy, the album on which "Werewolves" was released. He was friends with many of the "classic" artists of the 70s, most notably Linda Ronstadt (Tuesday's Musical Notes - "When Will I Be Loved" (Linda Ronstadt)), all of the band members of Fleetwood Mac (Tuesday's Musical Notes search - "Fleetwood Mac") as well as a "who's who" of musical greats from that period. Many of those artists performed on his last studio album 2003's The Wind.
The Wind was released two weeks before Warren Zevon died from mesothelioma in September 2003. The album received good critical reviews and several accolades including being nominated for multiple Grammys. It won that year's Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album as well as Best Rock Performance (Vocal or Group) for today's featured song, "Disorder In The House", a song describing the state of the world through Zevon's eyes as he approached his demise. "...Disorder in the house There's a flaw in the system And the fly in the ointment's gonna bring the whole thing down..." This characterization doesn't seem too far removed from our world situation today or for that matter the world's situation 2000 years ago...
Today we adjust ever so slightly the chronology of the Biblical narrative as we encounter Scripture at an interesting point in Jesus' life where He observes His first Passover since beginning His ministry. The last Passover that the Gospels attest to is when Jesus was 12 and Mary and Joseph had their "have you got Jesus? No, I thought you had Jesus" moment. John tells us about Jesus going to the temple to observe Passover when all of a sudden Jesus had what we refer to in the south as a "fit". Jesus fashions a whip out of some cords and starts flogging the merchants in the temple courtyard. He flings over the tables with money and demands those who are selling sacrifices to leave at once. We've come a long way from Jesus not wanting much attention at the wedding in Cana to this point.
Why is Jesus upset? There are a couple of things to consider when trying to answer that question about this encounter. First of all, John tells this story before any of the other Gospel writers. John places this event shortly after Cana at the onset of His three years of teaching the disciples displaying John's focus being elsewhere other than the timeline of Jesus' life. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all place a "cleansing" event as a part of Holy Week after the triumphal entry into Jerusalem. This raises the question, did Jesus cleanse the temple twice? The answer is no. John's emphasis on the Gospel is not on chronology as much as it is on the message and mission of Jesus. The other Gospels take a more accurate timeline approach and focus on different characteristics of Jesus and His ministry.
The point being made by John as well as the other Gospel writers is that the temple was for God-honoring worship and sacrifice, not profiteering. What these merchants were doing was allowed under Mosaic law, but where and how they were doing it was not the manner that Moses prescribed. They were charging exorbitant prices for sacrifices that they sold to Passover observers AND more importantly, they were profaning the temple by using it as a storefront, selling the sacrifices on the temple ground as opposed to selling outside of the temple mount. Ultimately, they were also profaning what Jesus would be doing by serving as the ultimate FREE sacrifice for all of man's sins, thus eliminating the need for animals at all.
Secondly, Jesus uses his "righteous indignation" as an object lesson. "...disorder in the house, time to duck and cover..." The disciples, as well as the religious leaders of the day, were watching every move the relatively new teacher/rabbi was making. Jesus takes this opportunity to be the fulfillment of Scripture with His zeal for the temple as well as a conversation starter to those around Him about His purpose on this earth. Psalm 69:9 NASB/AMP/ESV/KJV
Finally, the conversations that were swirling around Jesus at this point were regarding authority as well as prophecy. The onlookers knew that Jesus was a carpenter from Nazareth. They became quickly curious as to who had given Him the authority to rid the temple of this "service". Jesus replied, "tear it down and I will build it back in three days". The crowd was dumbstruck as it had taken 46 years for the construction of the temple (again theologians differ as to whether the temple was complete at the time of Jesus' cleansing of it). The disciples didn't even understand where Jesus was going with this as they couldn't think past the temporal. This would have been one of the first times that Jesus begins to elaborate on what will happen in His future as He described His death and resurrection, not another destruction of the temple. The onlookers, as well as the disciples, were perplexed as they could only see the physical manifestations of what Jesus was saying.
This passage from John is unusual in the fact that he usually writes from the perspective of Jesus' love. For John to show Jesus' wrath is interesting in comparison to the remainder of the narrative of Jesus' life as given to us by John. We will soon see how Jesus' love informed even the "disorder in the house" as He prepares for the three years of ministry He has ahead.
'Til Tuesday,
Loving HIM by Loving You,
randy
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