I had every intention of posting every day during Holy Week. But, as usual, life gets busy and we tend to put God to the side until we think we have time for Him. It's a quality that I'm not terribly proud of, to be sure. I know God deserves to be first, and not get my "left-overs". Humbly, now, I gather up my thoughts and try to catch-up...
I had already spoken a great deal, in my opinion, about Palm Sunday. As you may recall, I mentioned that Palm Sunday kinda gets bad press. Actually, I feel that Palm Sunday gets NO press. I didn't even know what Palm Sunday was until adulthood. But I feel confident that some of the details were revealed in my previous post (which I hope you read).
Now we can discuss the last Monday of Jesus' life. It doesn't have a catchy name. It doesn't usually get talked about too much, either. Not sure why - it's a fairly important day. But maybe that's just Mondays for you.
This particular Monday, Jesus did something that seems to get skimmed over a lot in our Christian life. On Monday, Jesus cleared the temple.
I want to back up a little bit and explain a few key points. First of all, the reference that I make for this temple event occur in the Gospel of Luke. I personally love the book of Luke. I love the way he writes and the message just speaks to my heart. It's my favorite among the gospels and one of the many favorites of the New Testament. But the temple cleansing is also mentioned in the other gospels. However, in John, it is mentioned "out-of-order". I'm not a Bible scholar so I can't really speak to why this is, but in some of my light research, some suggest that there may have been more than one temple cleansing in Jesus' ministry. Others suggest that John didn't necessarily write in order of events, but in order of importance. I like to think it was the latter - see, Jesus cleaning the temple of all the evil is a very significant event. It was really the first time in scripture that we see that Jesus has a little bit of a temper. And I can totally relate!
We know that Jesus was the "perfect lamb", so we know he did not sin. And we know that Jesus is fully man and yet fully God, and God is perfect. So we can deduce that Jesus acted in a way that did not allow for sin in this instance. So we can be sure that Jesus is right in speaking out against the atrocities committed in the temple.
Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. "It is written," he said to them, "My house will be a house of prayer; but you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" (Luke 19:45-46)
Here's what was happening: in that day, people didn't attend the temple daily. It would've been too expensive and too difficult - especially if you lived outside of the city. People came on a regular cycle and paid a 'temple head tax' - in other words, a tax for using the temple. Of course, if you were not from the city, you might be using a different form of money. You would need to convert it to the right kind of money accepted at the temple. So you would be greeted by the folks who do currency exchange. For a fee, naturally. And you couldn't make any kind of sacrifice with just any animal. You would need a pure and clean animal to make your sacrifice. But how could the temple officials know if your animal was good enough? So they offered animals at the temple for sacrifices. For a fee, naturally. By the time a person traveled, exchanged his money and paid his "tax" and bought his sacrificial animal, he may as well have been broke! And this was not at all what God was asking of his people. The temple officials were taking advantage of people who wanted to pray, receive forgiveness, and be close to God. And Jesus was sick over it. After all, if people were not able to follow these temple rules, they would never be close to God at all! And let's face it, the other option - Jesus Christ himself - was under constant attack thanks to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and other leaders of the day. So how on earth could anyone be saved??
It is written in Matthew 21:12 that Jesus "overturned tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves." Can you imagine seeing Jesus this amped up? We may look into our own lives and see ourselves turning over tables and calling people robbers, and say we are full of "rage". Was Jesus? When does anger cross over into sinful anger? Psalm 4:4 gives us a clue: "In your anger do not sin". Anger is a perfectly acceptable emotion - we now see that Jesus was, and rightfully so, angry. He saw people trying to keep their own away from God, and ultimately, away from saving grace. He knew that these rules were imposing on a loving, healthy relationship and it made his blood boil. He didn't hurt anyone, but he made it perfectly clear that this kind of behavior was unacceptable. However, that does not give us free reign to walk about overturning tables and calling people out in their sin. After all, it was also written that Jesus said "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone" (John 8:7). Jesus, the only one truly without sin, was fully in the right to "cast the first stone".
I had already spoken a great deal, in my opinion, about Palm Sunday. As you may recall, I mentioned that Palm Sunday kinda gets bad press. Actually, I feel that Palm Sunday gets NO press. I didn't even know what Palm Sunday was until adulthood. But I feel confident that some of the details were revealed in my previous post (which I hope you read).
Now we can discuss the last Monday of Jesus' life. It doesn't have a catchy name. It doesn't usually get talked about too much, either. Not sure why - it's a fairly important day. But maybe that's just Mondays for you.
This particular Monday, Jesus did something that seems to get skimmed over a lot in our Christian life. On Monday, Jesus cleared the temple.
I want to back up a little bit and explain a few key points. First of all, the reference that I make for this temple event occur in the Gospel of Luke. I personally love the book of Luke. I love the way he writes and the message just speaks to my heart. It's my favorite among the gospels and one of the many favorites of the New Testament. But the temple cleansing is also mentioned in the other gospels. However, in John, it is mentioned "out-of-order". I'm not a Bible scholar so I can't really speak to why this is, but in some of my light research, some suggest that there may have been more than one temple cleansing in Jesus' ministry. Others suggest that John didn't necessarily write in order of events, but in order of importance. I like to think it was the latter - see, Jesus cleaning the temple of all the evil is a very significant event. It was really the first time in scripture that we see that Jesus has a little bit of a temper. And I can totally relate!
We know that Jesus was the "perfect lamb", so we know he did not sin. And we know that Jesus is fully man and yet fully God, and God is perfect. So we can deduce that Jesus acted in a way that did not allow for sin in this instance. So we can be sure that Jesus is right in speaking out against the atrocities committed in the temple.
Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. "It is written," he said to them, "My house will be a house of prayer; but you have made it 'a den of robbers.'" (Luke 19:45-46)
Here's what was happening: in that day, people didn't attend the temple daily. It would've been too expensive and too difficult - especially if you lived outside of the city. People came on a regular cycle and paid a 'temple head tax' - in other words, a tax for using the temple. Of course, if you were not from the city, you might be using a different form of money. You would need to convert it to the right kind of money accepted at the temple. So you would be greeted by the folks who do currency exchange. For a fee, naturally. And you couldn't make any kind of sacrifice with just any animal. You would need a pure and clean animal to make your sacrifice. But how could the temple officials know if your animal was good enough? So they offered animals at the temple for sacrifices. For a fee, naturally. By the time a person traveled, exchanged his money and paid his "tax" and bought his sacrificial animal, he may as well have been broke! And this was not at all what God was asking of his people. The temple officials were taking advantage of people who wanted to pray, receive forgiveness, and be close to God. And Jesus was sick over it. After all, if people were not able to follow these temple rules, they would never be close to God at all! And let's face it, the other option - Jesus Christ himself - was under constant attack thanks to the Pharisees, Sadducees, and other leaders of the day. So how on earth could anyone be saved??
It is written in Matthew 21:12 that Jesus "overturned tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves." Can you imagine seeing Jesus this amped up? We may look into our own lives and see ourselves turning over tables and calling people robbers, and say we are full of "rage". Was Jesus? When does anger cross over into sinful anger? Psalm 4:4 gives us a clue: "In your anger do not sin". Anger is a perfectly acceptable emotion - we now see that Jesus was, and rightfully so, angry. He saw people trying to keep their own away from God, and ultimately, away from saving grace. He knew that these rules were imposing on a loving, healthy relationship and it made his blood boil. He didn't hurt anyone, but he made it perfectly clear that this kind of behavior was unacceptable. However, that does not give us free reign to walk about overturning tables and calling people out in their sin. After all, it was also written that Jesus said "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone" (John 8:7). Jesus, the only one truly without sin, was fully in the right to "cast the first stone".
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