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”.’
Mark 11:17 NIVUK
In the same trip to the Philippines where we got engaged, my wife’s church also held their anniversary. I was thrilled to be the main speaker at the service. So I stood up and began preaching.
But there was an interruption. Something disrupted the service.
Outside, the anniversary meal was already being cooked. A pig was slowly being roasted over an open fire. It was a hot day, and the church doesn’t have air conditioning. The windows have open slats. So the smell of roasting pork was wafting through the windows, being picked up by the electric fans and blown across the room.
I could tell the congregation was getting hungry. Some may even have been salivating. So I preached a shorter sermon than I had intended.
And that is the secret to making me stop talking. Just spit-roast a pig near my window.
What does this have to do with this passage?
Well, Jesus completely interrupted the patterns and routines that had been set up in the Temple for some time. He did so – and I don’t see how any other interpretation is possible – in a fit of planned righteous rage and anger.
Why do I say it was planned?
Because of this text:
Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
Mark 11:11 NIVUK
Do you see this? It wasn’t a spontaneous outburst, a pique of temper. Not one bit. This was planned. This was deliberate.
So if you’re used to ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’, be prepared for a huge shock, because this is anything but.
The question we ask ourselves is this: why did Jesus get so angry?
To understand this, we need to know what’s going on.
When Jews made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, they would often have to travel long distances to get there. Because of this, there was a specific provision in Jewish law that allowed them to bring money and buy a sacrifice in Jerusalem, rather than bring their own livestock from home (Deuteronomy 14:24-26). You can imagine that producers of bulls and lambs and grain around Jerusalem would be delighted by this, because travellers would buy their produce to sacrifice it at the Temple.
However, what happened is that the roaring trade in animals and birds for sacrifice moved from around the city into the Temple itself. It would have been highly convenient for pilgrims as there was a shorter distance between the place where they purchased their sacrifice and the altar where it was sacrificed.
Also, outside currencies were not acceptable in the Temple, including to pay the Temple tax, because other currencies bore human likenesses. It had to be in shekels, the currency of the Temple, because it did not. So money had to be exchanged.
That marketplace found its home in the Outer Court of the Temple – the Court of the Gentiles. And because of its position in the Temple, prices were much higher and currency conversion rates were worse.
Imagine for a second what this would feel like. Anyone who reads this is probably a Gentile. The Temple in Jerusalem was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Let’s say, as a God-fearing Gentile, that you travel a long way across land and sea to get to the Temple. You enter it with your sacrifice and are seeking to worship God. What would your experience be like?
It would probably by one filled with the noise of cattle mooing, sheep bleating, birds chirping and squawking, and the cries of currency salesmen hawking their wares.
Not to mention the ever-present smell of bird and animal dung.
Try praying and worshipping God in a smelly cacophony like that.
What made matters worse is that the Court of the Gentiles was the only part of the Temple that was open to non-Jews or converts to Judaism.
I’m sure the review on TripAdvisor would not have been glowing.
So why was Jesus so angry?
Three reasons, the first of which is commercialism.
Put simply, the market traders in the Temple were making money out of conning people who were coming on pilgrimage with honest intentions. They were fleecing worshippers.
Of course, ethically speaking, that is wrong. On any level. But it's even more wrong in a place of worship, and much more wrong in a place of worship for God.
You see, these people have substituted the worship of God for the worship of money (1 Timothy 6:10). And Jesus could not have been more clear: you cannot worship both. It has to be one or the other (Matthew 6:24). They were using God’s name for a profiteering racket.
That is wrong outside the Temple. Inside the Temple, it’s completely unacceptable.
I'm sure we will rush to find examples of this in things like the commercialisation of religious festivals, cultists demanding money and televangelists promising you a huge blessing if you only send them some cash. And I have no doubt that all of these are part of it.
But there is another, more challenging, aspect to this. You see, what lies behind the desire for money is the desire for self-promotion. It is the worship of self before all else. What these stallholders have done is essentially set up an idol to themselves in the Court of the Gentiles.
And that is truly scandalous.
However, how often have we performed an act of religious observance, or performed in church, with a wrong motivation: to draw attention to ourselves instead of God, so that we benefit, not God?
Isn’t that the same thing?
As well as commercialisation, there can be no doubt at all that this was clear discrimination. You see, the Temple had many different courts: the Court of the Gentiles, the Court of Women, and then a further courtyard beyond the Nicanor Gate for ceremonially pure men, before the Court of the Priests, and then the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place.
Let me tell you something you might find surprising. The Biblical design for Temple did not have any of these. Even from the Tabernacle onwards, there were only three areas in the Temple: the Outer Court, the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place. The complications around these courts were a later tradition, set up during the time of King Herod, who Himself was not a Jew. And they served one function only: to keep people out.
The fact that there was a lively marketplace in the one Temple Court where a Gentile could worship makes it far worse.
New Testament believers are banned from showing any form of discrimination or favouritism for or against anyone (see James 2:1-11). When Jesus quotes Isaiah in His response to the Jewish leaders, He is quoting from a passage about how God will draw to Himself people who are not Jews from birth (Isaiah 56:3-8).
This is why having the marketplace in the one Temple location where they could worship is so utterly offensive, because they have turned the House of Prayer for all nations into a den of robbers.
Lastly, there is a mention of resurrection here, as John picks up:
The Jews then responded to him, ‘What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’ They replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
John 2:18-22 NIVUK
What gives Jesus the authority to drive out the market traders and restore the Court of Gentiles to a place of worship and prayer?
The fact that, within a week, they would crucify Him, but He would rise from the dead. This marked Him out as Divine – the One they should be worshipping instead of money. And that gave Him unmistakable authority.
So what can we learn from this?
Jesus was furious at the way pilgrims were being conned, right in the very place where they should worship – at how right religion was being perverted for selfish gain. And He was fully justified.
But there is a huge challenge for us. We must not replace the worship of God for the worship of self – at any level. We must recognise that He has the authority to clean out of our lives any sign of selfishness, and let Him do so without hindrance.
Because when we do this, we have the mind of Christ.
Questions
1. What Jesus right to be angry? Why?
2. Are there parts of your life where the worship of God had been replaced by the worship of self? How can you put this right?
3. What was the basis of Jesus’ authority to do these things? Have you given Him authority to clean up your life too?
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