Passion Week 2: My House Shall Be Called A House Of Prayer
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you make it a den of robbers." - Matthew 21:12-13
Jesus spent Monday and Tuesday of Passion Week in the temple by day and staying in Bethany by night. The temple, designated as the place where the presence and glory of Yahweh would rest, and the place where priests ministered night and day so that the fire on the altar would never go out (Lev 6:12). But this temple had become something altogether different. Built by Herod the Great, it had become a symbol of his greatness. It was a temple that had become political, not worshipful. Though the structure stood, the heart was lost, the glory was gone, the ark had been lost hundreds of years earlier.
Jesus approached the temple early in Passion week and found the hustle and bustle you would find today in a shopping mall or county fair. The buying and selling took place in the court of the Gentiles, the place designed all along for foreigners to congregate and for the nations to seek the God of Israel. It was overrun with opportunists trying to turn a profit and the Jewish leaders had let this happen. Their economic drive, and their false security in the temple as a sign of blessing (Jeremiah 7:3–11), had crowded out space for the nations to draw near. The robbery wasn’t only economical but spiritual. The rows of product and price-gouging left no room for the Gentiles, the poor, and the outcasts to come to God. When Jesus enters the court of Gentiles where the moneychangers were price gouging those that came to bring their offering and robbing the nations of encounter with the beauty of holiness, He takes action. He fashions a whip and cleanses the temple.
The real injustice was how out of sync Israel’s worship was with the great end-times vision Isaiah had prophesied. Isaiah saw a great global worship movement comprised of foreigners who had joined themselves to the Lord (1 Cor 6:17), taken up the priestly ministry (1 Pt 2:5), and sang joyful songs in the House of Prayer.
"And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant-- these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples." - Isaiah 56:6-7
Jesus was in Jerusalem that Holy week to open the way for the very nations who were being disinherited to come before the throne of God with confidence by the free gift of grace through a new and living way; His very body. His eyes were set on the cross, whereby the end of the week He would purchase men from every tribe, people, nation, and language and make them a kingdom of priests (Rev 5:9-10). What He encountered walking onto the temple grounds was not just unfortunate; it was in direct opposition to His heart, His purposes, and the work for which He was about to lay down His life.
Jesus dealt with the outer courts violently because it was violently opposing all that He came to accomplish. He dealt violently with the outer courts on Monday and violently with the inner courts on Friday, tearing the veil to the Holy of Holies from top to bottom (Matt 27:51). In turning over the tables and rending the veil in the temple, Jesus was overturning one priesthood and program of worship and inaugurating a new priesthood that would spread across the whole earth until incense would arise in every place (Mal 1:11) and every nation would see and sing of His worth.
In the same manner, let us turn over every table and remove every hindrance in our own hearts, minds, and churches that still robs the nations of this great gospel and the privilege to take part in this glorious priesthood.
