In this thought-provoking Holy Week discussion, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke delve into the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. They explore the significance of this event and its impact on Jesus’ journey towards the cross. Join them as they uncover the themes of righteous anger, true worship, and the dangers of idolatry.
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00:00:00:25 – 00:00:48:23
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Happy Tuesday. If you’re in the area, I hope you are warm and doing all right with the school day and some other things. We are grateful to have you with us. However it is that you’ve come to be here. Wherever you are, we’re grateful. The thing we’re doing this week, as we move through what the Church calls Holy Week, the week previous to Easter, the week preceding Easter, we are walking through some of the texts that outline for us some of the things that happened in this week between the conversation we had yesterday about Palm Sunday, a celebration, a parade, a fairly optimistic moment, and the change that happens until Friday, where the
00:00:48:23 – 00:01:13:37
Clint Loveall
crowds are shouting Crucify him and Jesus is put on the cross. Today we look at it, a text that is important in the gospels. We’ll talk more about how important. But it is it is in the gospels. Each of the gospels. It’s what we call Jesus cleansing the temple. Just a quick overview of the story. If you don’t know it.
00:01:13:42 – 00:01:44:55
Clint Loveall
Most of the Gospels, three of the Gospels put this event just prior to the crucifixion, the Gospel of John actually starts with this. So there’s some speculation that maybe something like this happened twice. If in an effort to try and reconcile that, it may be also the case that John believed it happened earlier or positioned it earlier, that there’s tons of arguments that you could access if that if that was important to you and if you wanted to figure that out, you could.
00:01:45:00 – 00:02:10:54
Clint Loveall
Most of the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, the ones that look alike, that’s what synoptic means. They put this as part of the Holy Week, The Passion Week, and it’s in the aftermath of Passover and Jesus goes, or the preparation for Passover, excuse me, and Jesus goes to the temple. And in that day, Jewish people were expected at least annually to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to the temple.
00:02:10:55 – 00:02:36:40
Clint Loveall
Many of them did that for the celebration of the Passover. And so Jerusalem would have been full of people and the temple would have been full of people. And it’s interesting, Michael, that we kind of encounter this story in the preparation because it becomes an Easter story. But we encounter in the preparation for a Jewish holiday, which I think gives an interesting setting.
00:02:36:45 – 00:03:20:47
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, it is certainly one of those stories that maybe Christians can’t relate with all the back story or all the context without a little bit of work and consideration. And I do think that it’s worth doing that work here because the temple is a really important location, and that depends even upon the emphasis of the gospel writers themselves, like we just finished the study of Luke, and if you remember throughout that study, Luke records and recounts all of the number of times that Jesus made prophecies about Jerusalem, about the the City of David, what was going to happen, the woes to the city of all of the horrendous things that would come down the pike
00:03:20:47 – 00:04:06:09
Michael Gewecke
for it. And so what we discover here when he enters this city is that there’s a kind of culminating moment, especially when you look at the Synoptic Gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke here I’ve got this synoptic gospel account here, pulled out the parallel gospel account. But what you discover here pretty quickly is that Jesus discovers that there’s an industry that has been built up around the religious observance is happening in the temple, that the people who are coming to worship in the temple, the people who are coming to do their due diligence, they’re seeking to worship God faithfully.
00:04:06:09 – 00:04:28:58
Michael Gewecke
But when they go to do that task, the people in power, the people who are going to enriched, be enriched by that worship. They’re making money from the things that are required. So when you need to go buy a sacrifice, there are people in the temple who are happy to exchange your money of whatever currency or type it is into the sacrifice that you’re going to need.
00:04:28:58 – 00:04:57:36
Michael Gewecke
And of course, those people are have found a way that they’re going to profit off of that exchange. So in other words, off of the backs of people coming in the spirit of honest worship, trying to worship God, part of this whole Passover experience, there are others who are going to be making money, enriching themselves, both in quantity, but also enriching themselves in their political power and enriching their lives within the city itself.
00:04:57:36 – 00:05:04:44
Michael Gewecke
And that ultimately becomes a breaking point for Jesus. And his actions speak even louder than words in this story.
00:05:04:51 – 00:05:27:43
Clint Loveall
Yeah, So let’s let’s quickly cover that background at the temple. There’s actually a stables. Animals are raised there at the temple. There are herdsmen that supply the temple. There are priests whose job it is to make sure the animals are acceptable. And then for those who came to Jerusalem to do the sacrifices, they often didn’t bring their own animal with them.
00:05:27:43 – 00:05:59:43
Clint Loveall
They would purchase an animal at the temple. That’s one of the industries that there is this livestock market essentially associated with the temple and run by the temple or the temple staff. In addition to that, it was forbidden at the temple to use Roman money. So there were exchange booths outside of the temple where you could trade in your Roman currency, the Roman money of the day, and get Jewish currency.
00:05:59:58 – 00:06:27:09
Clint Loveall
And then you could use that currency to purchase those sacrifices. And so there are people making money on the animals, there are people making money on the exchange. And so when when you encounter this phrase, money changers, that’s what that’s about. These are currency people. They’re selling people currency. And of course, they make a little profit. That’s not a 1 to 1 thing.
00:06:27:09 – 00:06:52:48
Clint Loveall
And so there is this industry that has grown up around worship and it is profitable. And on a weekend like or a week like Passover week, anticipating the holiday that weekend there, there may have been hundreds and thousands of people. This is likely one of the most lucrative weeks of the year. And when Jesus encounters this, it does something for him.
00:06:52:48 – 00:07:25:34
Clint Loveall
In explaining this, all of the passages use this phrase zeal for my father’s house. They remember this, this phrase. But Jesus, I want to be careful with this language. I don’t want to be flippant, but Jesus effectively loses it. And there aren’t many moments where we see Jesus give in to anger. This is certainly a righteous anger, but he becomes infuriated at this marketing thing that’s happening in the temple, that this is no longer about worship.
00:07:25:39 – 00:07:54:30
Clint Loveall
This is no longer about pleasing God, this is no longer about helping people. This, for a significant amount of people, has become about profit and and Jesus reacts to it physically. Be careful with this word, but maybe even you could say violently, certainly aggressively as something in this whole thing on that day just sets him off. And it’s a it’s a memorable story, Michael.
00:07:54:30 – 00:08:16:39
Clint Loveall
I think it’s one that that stands out because it is unusual and we want to be careful with, you know, taking this as some kind of license to attack things. Jesus stands on much better footing than we do. But it is that disconnect between what worship is supposed to be and what the people have made it, that that just sets Jesus off.
00:08:16:44 – 00:08:43:02
Michael Gewecke
So the fact that all of the gospels record this story and you already talked about John and the location of that. So we’ll leave that conversation aside. The fact is all four gospels recount this. And also I would add to that conversation, not only do they recount it, but they recount some of the essential details the same. And one of these phrases I really want to lift out to make sure that we’ve seen here, Luke includes it.
00:08:43:02 – 00:09:06:56
Michael Gewecke
So we’ll zoom in here to that Jesus says two things. First of all, the house of God should be a house of prayer. The idea of worship, of continuing the honest and sincere, authentic worship of God. That’s the thing that should be happening within the temple. But instead you have made it a den of robbers and that exact phrase.
00:09:07:01 – 00:09:35:00
Michael Gewecke
We come over the mark. We have that here, a den of robbers. We have the same in Matthew den of robbers, some translations, den of thieves. It’s a fascinating contrast. The place that should be a safe sanctuary, a place set aside for the worship of God, a place for prayer or praise, a place for uplifting to God. It has become instead a horizontal place of taking.
00:09:35:00 – 00:10:13:17
Michael Gewecke
Instead of it being directed vertically to God. It’s become for the people who enrich themselves in the temple an opportunity to take from neighbor. And if you know the gospel, you know that that is the essential tenant of the kingdom, that Jesus is proclaiming that the Kingdom of God is one in which God is going to come and God is going to restore right relationship with God and right relationship between humans, but between those that God has created and here in the very place that’s supposed to function as a nexus of those two things, that the temple should represent the best of both of those movements.
00:10:13:30 – 00:10:36:36
Michael Gewecke
It instead represents those who want to divert from the worship of God for the sake of taking for themselves. And so in this moment, Jesus does react violently. And I think the mistake that has sometimes been made, the people who love this tax clamp, the people who come and say, Hey, look, Jesus still threw out the money changers, He threw over the tables.
00:10:36:36 – 00:11:11:36
Michael Gewecke
He went after the people who are selling doves. Yes. Because they stood at the exact center of the activity that should be drawing people closer to God. And instead they did something which moved people away from God and towards their own self, their only rich. But they stood in the opposite direction of the kingdom. And I think that we should note that in Jesus’s life and ministry, this is really one of the only recorded accounts that we have of something like this, where Jesus responds with such anger and and just throwing over tables.
00:11:11:47 – 00:11:57:19
Michael Gewecke
This is a unique moment. And the fact that for the majority of the gospel accounts, this is recorded as being part of that last Holy Week experience, I think is significant because you go from the one who’s enter who enters the city triumphantly. The people are crying out to save us. And so when he goes to the temple to restore the right order, he angers some of the essentially important people in Jerusalem, the people with the most power, prestige, the religious celebrities of that day are going to look bad when someone goes in the temple, causes a ruckus, blames the leadership for allowing anti religious activity in the place that’s supposed to be the central
00:11:57:19 – 00:12:21:42
Michael Gewecke
religious place for the people of Israel. This is the kind of contrast that Jesus draws through this action. And of course, the gospel writers make it clear that this is a large part, actually, of what’s going to pull Jesus into the deeper and deeper sort of dregs of his relationship with these religious leaders in Jerusalem. This has an impact in the rest of the week.
00:12:21:46 – 00:12:57:16
Clint Loveall
There are those who have gone so far, and again, you have to exercise some caution with these things because it’s speculation and the broader picture of scripture is that Jesus ends up on the cross because that is his intention and that is the design of what it means to be Jesus. There are those who say that perhaps as much as any single event this moment is what seals Jesus fate.
00:12:57:21 – 00:13:29:49
Clint Loveall
There are these verses in the aftermath. They looked for us a way to kill him that shows up throughout the narrative. So you can’t stand on that and say that it’s 100% true. But imagine that Jesus attacks the most profitable practice in the temple at the most profitable time of doing it. I mean, imagine going to the Super Bowl or or something related to the Super Bowl and kicking over snacks and drinks, right?
00:13:29:54 – 00:13:58:08
Clint Loveall
I mean, you’re going to get some attention and it’s going to not be good attention. And Jesus is on this collision course. And yes, to some small extent, this is about commerce, but this isn’t a text about whether it’s okay to buy and sell things. This is a text about what it means to keep God at the center and that they have changed worship into something else.
00:13:58:08 – 00:14:26:34
Clint Loveall
They’ve made worship about a way to get something for themselves. It’s not sacrifices dedicated to God. It’s commerce and trading that benefits people who are taking advantage of those who are seeking to worship and put themselves in the presence of God. And in this system, even to theoretically please God by their sacrifice, a thing that God has called them to do.
00:14:26:34 – 00:15:04:18
Clint Loveall
And so this is really not a text that translates very well to some conversation about business practices. This is a worship. This is an idolatry. This is a heart kind of text. And fascinating that it it comes here in proximity, at least most of the gospels. It comes in proximity to Holy week when when Jesus is making a statement that will culminate in demonstrating who he is to the world and saying, forgive them, they don’t know what they do.
00:15:04:22 – 00:15:17:22
Clint Loveall
But Jesus starts the week out hot and he garners for himself a lot of attention. That is that is going to come back to him, I.
00:15:17:22 – 00:15:39:40
Michael Gewecke
Think a point in favor of what you’re saying here, Clint, is just note that the people who are most affected by these actions are the religious leadership. I think let’s be clear about that. The Romans, they don’t care at all about the things happening in the temple as long as the stuff happening in the temple doesn’t lead the people to revolt.
00:15:39:41 – 00:16:07:39
Michael Gewecke
It doesn’t mess with the Roman power. They don’t care if there’s money changers outside. They don’t care if there are people selling animals inside. They don’t care at all for for the Romans, this is a non-issue. The people that Jesus is speaking to and the people that are affected by Jesus, his actions are, let’s be clear, they’re the religious leaders of the people of Israel, the ones who have the highest education, who have the most invested in the religious observance of the people.
00:16:07:53 – 00:16:44:11
Michael Gewecke
So this is the thing that makes this story so interesting. I think it it’s maybe not what we would consider a devotional type text. It is not the type of story you turn to and you you hear a lot of God’s word for me today in I think one thing it does have to say is that we all especially and maybe specifically as religious people, as Christians, if we call ourself that, we should be very, very attuned and very, very attentive to the places in our life where we’re willing to substitute worship for God, for other things.
00:16:44:11 – 00:17:12:52
Michael Gewecke
And it happens all the time. I doubt that you’re going to be trying to sell animals to people worshiping in a church this Easter season, but there are many ways in which we become committed to our possessions or become committed to our titles, or be committed to the idea of a a building or a place or thing. And we replace the living active God inside our lives with the stuff that so easily fills that place.
00:17:12:52 – 00:17:48:54
Michael Gewecke
And I think a text like this reveals for us how seriously that is addressed by Jesus Christ, that when he enters into our lives, anything set apart from the worship of God, anything we set aside unto ourselves is unacceptable. Our heart should be pure, our heart should be clean. We should be offering God authentic sacrifices of praise. And whenever we find ourselves benefit, dying from false stories or false idols or false commitments, those things are things that need to be gotten rid of as we make our way deeper into it.
00:17:48:59 – 00:18:09:43
Michael Gewecke
It sometimes may be in modern culture that the stuff of life or the entrapments of life are the things that we come to, to idolize. Those things can, in some cases be idolized. But in the Scripture, as Jesus encounters anything that stands between the people and the right worship of God at, there’s no wiggle room. It’s black and white.
00:18:09:43 – 00:18:23:12
Michael Gewecke
Those things need to be gotten rid of. And I think in that way, this is a sobering text. It’s an inviting text to consider. What are the things in my life that get in between worshiping God rightly and the stuff that I have put in between it?
00:18:23:16 – 00:18:45:16
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think that’s right. My God, I would I would say that this is not a text where we read it and we should think I need to emulate Jesus. I mean, clearly we do need to emulate Jesus, but this isn’t a text that’s calling us to kind of make appraisals and and to disrupt things. This is a text.
00:18:45:16 – 00:19:09:02
Clint Loveall
I think that asks us to examine our hearts and say, Why is it that we do what we do? When I when we come to church on Easter Sunday, AM I coming because I want to take my place in the House of Prayer or is it for some other reason? Am I working the system in some way? Is there hypocrisy in me?
00:19:09:07 – 00:19:37:53
Clint Loveall
Is there ritual and falseness in me, or is there life giving worship? Is that truly what I seek to do and what I seek to contribute? I do think there is a word of caution, certainly in this text for church leaders. I think there is a high bar here, a standard. But I think for the average reader, I don’t think we leave this text thinking, I need to go find something and knock some tables over.
00:19:38:07 – 00:19:53:21
Clint Loveall
I think it’s much more about a text that asks us to examine our own motivations, our own standards, our own practices as we come to worship. Whenever we do and however we do.
00:19:53:25 – 00:20:06:27
Michael Gewecke
We’re glad to have you with us here today. I hope that as we engage deeper into this Holy Week, that this is a blessing to you and your observance of it. We, of course, would love to see you tomorrow as we continue on this journey. But until then, be blessed.
00:20:06:39 – 00:20:07:26
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.