"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again." Given that Jesus was standing smack in the middle of a literal, brick-and-mortar temple at the time he said this, it seemed merely obvious that Jesus meant the physical building. And so everyone who heard him responded the same way, "It has taken us forty-six years just to get this far, and even so the construction project isn't finished yet! Now you tell us you could do the whole thing from scratch in under a week!? Right!" According to John, Jesus does not reply to this, and even the disciples didn't understand it until years later after Jesus rose again from the dead.

But although he doesn't say it directly, maybe Jesus wanted them to have the wrong idea as a subtle, yet poignant, way to demonstrate that just generally they had the wrong idea. They had the wrong focus. They were obsessed with brick and mortar. Their mention of how long it had taken them to build the temple was a sign that they had lost their way. They no longer had the radical faith of Psalm 69. The psalmist endured insult and injury because of his outrageous belief that the living God actually dwelled in the temple. But some of the Jews in Jesus' day had forgotten. They saw it as their own accomplishment in which they could do whatever they wanted because it was, after all, their place. (I wish that did not sound so familiar).