Zeal: A Meditation on Revelation 3:19

“Zeal for your house will consume me.” (John 2:17)

“. . . be zealous and repent. Behold I stand at the door and knock. (Rev. 3:19-20)

John tells us that Jesus made a whip. He made a whip out of cords. I imagine him having to braid the cords together, a task that took a little time. All the while he’s thinking, praying. As his fingers weave and wrap he’s pondering what he’s just seen, and as he ponders he burns. He can feel it in his face. It’s anger, yes – but not petulant anger. The sight of money-changers in the temple, the shouts of sleazy opportunists selling animals for sacrifice to pilgrims at a jacked-up price, this he would not bear. So he made a whip, deliberately, patiently, with steely resolve. And he walked back to the temple courts.

As he overturned tables, as the coins jangled and bounced across the stone floors, as the small-time hacks ducked or scattered, grabbing their goods and shouting back their curses, as all of this was happening the disciples of Jesus watched and remembered. They remembered a line of scripture from the “Tehelim,” the book of praises or Psalms. We know it as Psalm 69:9. “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

It’s interesting that the Greek word for “zeal” used in this line from John 2:17 is the same word that shows up in the words of Christ to the church at Laodicea; words also written by John’s hand. In Revelation 3:19 Jesus calls upon the Laodiceans to “be zealous and repent.”

If we ponder that word from John 2 and the same word in Revelation 3:19, we gain some insight into the nature of both zeal and repentance. We get an idea of where zeal comes from, and what it means to repent of our lukewarm condition.

Jesus cleared the temple of money changers because he saw something about the holiness of God and the sacredness of worship that was being defamed by the carnival-like bazaar that had been set up in the temple courts. His vision of God gave birth to his zeal. His braiding of the whip, his shouting of Jeremiah’s words – these were not a temper tantrum. This was a God-drenched zeal, a zeal that the Psalmist described as consuming.

This kind of vision and the zeal that it exudes will never be had as long as Jesus is left standing at the door, outside the intimacies of the home and heart. That’s exactly what had happened in Laodicea, and that partially explains their lukewarm state. Christ, standing on the outside or in the margins, appeals to them with words that convey a kind of longing. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” As long as Christ as left at the door our vision of him will be stunted and our zeal will be, well, lukewarm.

I can’t help but think of a recent ad campaign for Domino’s pizza. The brand line on the commercials says “Get the door . . . it’s Domino’s.” At the risk of irreverence, “Get the door . . . it’s Jesus.”

What does it take to be done with a lukewarm faith and to be consumed with zeal? Nothing less than a vision of God, revealed to us in Jesus Christ, and as close to us as a friend across the table. Do you see him that way? Do you know him that way? Until you do your zeal will be short-lived, sporadic. So get the door.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I yearn to be consumed with zeal – not the kind of zeal the world offers me, but the kind that comes from seeing you in a fresh and powerful and compelling way. So many things in my life, in my daily routine, eclipse that vision of you. Come today and restore it; I gladly invite you in. Amen.