On the way to Jerusalem to Jericho is a distance of 15 miles, which would take 6 to 8 hours to walk. While they were walking we heard Last week about Jesus healing the two blind men on the road. Imagine the conversation after that. The disciples trying to figure out how Jesus changed the molecular structure of the eyes of those men by just touching them. There is healing in his touch. The disciples knew this but it probably never got old to see it happen. They were probably on cloud 9.
They came into Jerusalem which was packed with people all coming for the Passover celebration. The celebration happens in remembrance of the ancient Israelites being freed from slavery from Egypt after God brought ten plagues on the Egyptians, killing all their firstborn. While doing so, God spared the Children of Israel, “passing over” their homes—hence the name of the holiday. He wanted to bring them out because he wanted them to come worship him in a new place.
Even to this day it is still celebrated.
Walking in to Jerusalem during this celebration, there is upwards of about 2.25 million people. Have you ever left a sporting even or Disney world, thinking “some how I have to get though all these people all going the same direction as me.” That’s probably what it felt like walking through the streets of Jerusalem. You might have people trying to sell things like blankets or glow sticks or big foam hands. They probably cleaned up the streets and walls and made the city look even bigger and better then usual.
Through out all the crowds and the swarms of people Jesus comes in on a donkey that he told his disciples to go get from a house. Picture this, Jesus comes in on a donkey into this huge city that is filled to the brim with people and it all sort of stops, they see Jesus and they stop what they were doing, took of their coats and shirts and clothing and laid them on the ground along with palm trees. Back in this time, palm trees were not native in Jerusalem. So these palm tree branches that people had laid down for the donkey to walk across that Jesus was on were either bought at the market during the Passover celebration or brought in from different parts of the area. They recognized Jesus, they knew that he wasn’t normal, he was different. He was someone that deserved observation.
It says “the whole city was stirring.” They wanted to know who he was.
But all of this is in the background of something that is about to happen which is Jesus coming in to go to the temple which is the place God designed to intimately interact with his people.
Whats coming up next we see that Jesus isn’t happy. And I always read this and wondered why he was so ticked off, why Jesus, who has mercy and love and grace is angry enough to flip tables over.
Let me tell you that not all anger is not a sin, the bible says don’t let the sun go down on your anger, it doesn’t say don’t be angry. There is righteous anger that we all need to have. Lets look at the background and see where this angry comes from.
There were these sellers in Jerusalem and they were sellers because people from all over would come to this holy city and bring a sacrifice with them and there were these levities who were in charge of the temple, they were the priests of the temple. They would look at the sacrifices and determine if it was a worthy, unblemished sacrifice or not. If it wasn’t the people would be approached by the sellers who were sitting in the temple waiting for people with unaccepted sacrifices and offer to sell them accepted sacrifices. And over the years it got more and more corrupt where these priests and the sellers were in cahoots together and they would buy the unaccepted animal and sell them another one but then they would sell the unaccepted animal to someone else. They would just make a ton of money from these corrupt deals.
They would sell lambs and oxen and goats but they also sold pigeons and the thing about doves is the poor used doves as their sacrifice because they were cheep.
These poor people would come and they could afford two doves, that was their sacrifice. But the sellers were robbing them and oppressing them and a lot of the poor would stop coming cause they could afford it cause the priest would tell them that their perfectly good sacrifices was no good and charge them 20 times more for a different one that was the same quality.
God had very specific instructions in Deuteronomy on how the animal was to be raised and cared for. It was to be like a pet, like part of the family. After you had done this, raised this unblemished animal and it had huge value to you. You feed it, nurse it, care for it. That way you understand how serious it is when the family brings it to Jerusalem and the priests take the lamb and slaughter it, they sacrifice it.
But these people because of the sellers it got lazy, just showing up and going through the motions, expecting to be taken advantage of and losing all their money to the priest and the sellers.
Its not that they took advantage of the poor or that the people got lazy but where this all took place in the temple. God saved his people from bondage so that they would be a light to the rest of the world. That their actions would reflect the God who loves and the God who saves. Non Jewish people come in not understanding who God is and see that the “God people” are taken advantage of the poor and oppressing people and doing it all in the temple. That’s what they saw of Gods people when they came to the city. That’s the representation that they gave to others.
That was never God’s intent. His intent was that when people came to the temple they would be blown away by the wonder of God.
Do we have people like this today? People who ask the poor and oppressed to give all of their money so that they will get extra blessings? Idiots on TV who want peoples money and exchange they get an extra blessing or a 5 second prayer on tv. I wouldn’t want to be those people when they stand before Jesus one day.
Is it any wonder why Jesus was angry that day? He wanted to go to a place where people were suppose to get a true encounter with God and what happens instead he sees the poor being oppressed, the non Jewish people are disinterested and the others are just going through the motions all in the place where people should experience the God who loves them.
This was never the way it was suppose to be.
Look what he does in verse 12 and 13, this is where I want to focus. He drives them all out by flipping the tables and benches that the sellers were sitting on and says “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.” All of this comes from Isa 56:7
This is why Jesus wasn’t this pansy guy, our image of Jesus is all wrong, he had this righteous anger, flipping over the tables, Money was flying everywhere, doves were released out of their cages, the sellers were running away while trying to pick up their money and all the while we have this idea of Jesus being this half Gondi half Mr. rogers dude who has no manliness.
They were turning what God had intended for good, into a joke.
The disciples jaws must have dropped
But Jesus was just as much God in that moment as he was when he was a healer. He had anger because he has a heart for the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, a heart for the gentiles who didn’t know who God was, a heart for those who worshipped him half heartedly.
“Show me a man or women who loves much and I will should you a man or women who hates much.”
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, its just not. – Dr. Seuss
You can learn a lot about a persons love by learning about what makes them angry.
The anger he had towards what was happening came out of the love he had for whom it was happening to.
This place where people were suppose to meet God was corrupt and soiled but he stood there, telling the people there that he is the place to meet God. The glory may have left this temple but the glory will never leave me.
He was redefining the temple
The place where God dwells is in Jesus,
It’s the place where sin is washed away,
He is now the place where they were to meet God and he still is today.
He loves us so much that he will get all the junk out of the way, he will move it and get angry about that stuff because he passionately wants you to know how much he loves you.
When Jesus left to be with his father, the new place that people were to encounter God was the believers. That is true still to this day. The church, the body, is the temple.
If we are not careful we can start to become like the people were 2,000, you can start to go thu the motions and sing songs to God but you aren’t really doing anything. Jesus will not put up with us being consumer Christians.
The bible also talks about your body being the temple of God, ask yourself, is there anything in your temple that needs to be flipped, that needs to be released, that needs Jesus to come in and remove so that nothing hinders you from coming and worshipping Jesus with your life.
What things are holding you back from worshipping God? And do you want Jesus to come and take them away from you.
The truth is that Jesus loves this church, the people in the church, the body of believers here that if need be, he would come in here and flip the tables and scatter the money and drive out the sellers. Because he loves us. He will not leave us stagnant.
A worshipper of God asks Where can I give so that the most number of people will know Jesus,
SO my question now is, why are you here? If you don’t know Jesus and you’ve come here to hear about him then welcome, I hope to walk with you in understand who he is.
But if you know Jesus, why are you here? We need to ask ourselves if we are consumers or worshippers who want people to see who Jesus really is.
We, this church, cannot afford to be consumers! We won’t last.
