Clearing the Temple 3

Matthew 21:12-13

Most people have an image of Jesus that embodies peace and gentleness, but when he cleared the temple he became quite passionate. What does Jesus do? What does Jesus say to those in the temple?

The first question which might arise is why are there shops and money-changers (in essence, bankers) in the temple? If you examine the Old Testament instructions of offerings (Leviticus 1:1-7:21) you will see that those wishing to make a sacrifice at the temple were required to have specific grains and/or animals. Since it was not always practical to bring your own, people often bought what they needed when they arrived. Additionally, Jewish law prohibited graven images, so any Roman coins that had faces or animals on them (like our own currency) was forbidden and needed to be exchanged for acceptable coins.

So what was Jesus upset about? The implication has always been that the money-changers and those selling animals were cheating the people who were in attendance at the temple. This comes from his comment about being a den of robbers.

But if there were only fair trades and sales going on, would Jesus still have cleared the temple? I believe he would.

Jesus was likely upset, not that people were being cheated, but that buying and selling, money-changing, and all manner of other social activities were taking place in the temple. The temple was God’s house and it was meant to be a place of worship and prayer. God was supposed to be the center of attention there, and He was to be given reverent respect.

Instead people were being distracted by an almost festival air. At the very least the temple was more of a shopping mall than a church. And this aroused Jesus’ passion. He wanted God to be the focus, so he cleared away all the distractions.

Although our own places of worship may not be an open-air market like the temple had become, our faith may be weakened by all the distractions in our life. We may allow so many other things to become more important to us than our walk of faith. Like Jesus, we must drive away all of those distractions and focus our Lenten journey on the grace of God.

DAILY CHALLENGE: How can you be certain the temple of your heart is the way it should be?