Jesus’s Words Of Anger And Warning

– Ponderings:

Even though Jesus’s days are numbered, these early days of Holy Week are hard to reconstruct. The Gospels tell us of several events, but aren’t clear on the timing. Emotions, particularly those of Jesus, help give context to the events. There was the experience of the joy and celebration of the triumphal entry on the morning of Palm Sunday, followed closely by weeping over Jerusalem. There was quiet time for teaching and the need for solitude when it became clear that what he was saying wasn’t what people wanted to hear. There was also anger.

He (Jesus) entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” (Mark 11:15-17)

Why is Jesus so angry? Merchants and moneychangers had turned the temple into a bustling marketplace where they bought and sold animals for sacrifice and exchanged currency. This sacred space for prayer and worship was being used for the basest of reasons – so that some might profit at the expense of many. You see, the thousands and thousands of pilgrims coming into Jerusalem to take part in the Passover festival were required to purchase an animal for sacrifice and to change their Roman currency for temple currency. They had no choice and so were prime victims. Instead of welcoming fellow worshippers, the priests and temple rulers were robbing them. No wonder Jesus was angry.

But Jesus’s words aren’t only words of anger; they’re also words of warning. God’s temple was to be a house of prayer for people of all the nations. No one coming with a heart for worship should be excluded. But the scriptures tell us that we are also temples. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.”

What clutter do we carry in our hearts and minds? What distractions have set up shop in the sacred spaces of our lives? What figurative tables are in your life that Jesus would want to overturn?

Sometimes it’s comfort. Sometimes it’s too much focus on wealth, status, or other personal desires. Sometimes it’s anger, jealousy, greed, gossip, or noise from the world. Whatever it is, Lent invites us to let Jesus disrupt patterns and turn over tables in our lives, and remind us our lives are meant to be dwelling places of communion with God. It’s about creating space where we, and others we connect with, can encounter God. We are to be lights of welcome and worship, not barricades of busyness and exclusion.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, come and cleanse the temple of my heart. Turn over any tables of distraction and self-interest. Reclaim the sacred spaces in me that were made for prayer and communion with you.

Help me be a person whose life invites others into your presence, a house of prayer where all are welcome. Amen.