Jesus Gets Fired Up

Jesus Clears the Temple Courts

"On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”

The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.

When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city." Mark 11:15-19


Continuing in our Holy Week study, the bible records that Jesus then went to the temple and for the first time becomes so fired up that He overturned tables and benches and halted business transactions in the temple courts.

Business

In order to see the whole picture, we need to understand that the Passover feast or the Festival of the Unleavened Bread is a huge thing for the Jewish nation. Jews from all over, travel to Jerusalem at this time to offer at the temple their passover sacrifices. They buy or sell animals to be offered and they exchange foreign money to do their business transactions. And they go into all other sorts of businesses as crowds of people come and have all sorts of needs and wants, opening up all kinds of money making ventures and opportuities.

Not unlike what we have today, it is not hard to see that after hundreds of years, they too have very much commercialized their holy day.

And worst, the scum comes out of the woodworks to make a quick buck, short changing people, making false sales pitches, making up manmade rules and regulations, raising up prices, and making all sorts of trckery such as manipulating unsuspecting people into buying their animals because theirs are not acceptable to offer as a sacrifice or lowballing sellers while jacking up the prices to buyers.

Businessmen will always be businessmen, and so seeing all these face to face, just broke the heart of Jesus. These evil schemers were profiting off of people's beliefs and traditions, their weaknesses, their current conditions and profiting off God and doing it inside the temple grounds during the time of their feast. All these were just too vile, not to overturn.

Redemption Plan

Besides, He has come to become the final Passover sacrifice. And none of these thieves, robbers and scam artists will ever get a piece of Him, who is able to take away the sins of the world, unblemished and without any defect. God is a God of justice and He whipped up swift justice, right there and then.

While the people were amazed, the chief priests and everyone else who profit out of these schemes just wanted to kill Him all the more. Unknown to everyone, all these are just pieces of God's jigsaw puzzle plan of redemption, all waiting to be completed and put together by Resurrection Sunday.


Next: Things Still to Come