Christian Living
The paradox of Jesus Christ will always be that in His absolute, uncompromised being of deity, He was also absolutely uncompromised in His humanity. For all of His inherent holiness and separation from the world's evil, He was as inherently passionate and emotional as any one of us. This is never more apparent than when we watch Jesus, in what appears to be nearly out-of-control anger, tear apart the market that had been set up in the Temple.
This market, where Temple-goers could purchase offerings deemed "appropriate" for sacrifice, was established in the outer court of the Temple. This was the place open to both Jews and Gentiles, men and women. The premise of this institution seemed honorable, providing a seemingly needed service. After all, what Jew didn't need an acceptable sacrifice?
The plot thickens, however, when the system for providing these sacrifices is examined more closely:
- Each worshiper was required to submit their offering, be it doves or goats or sheep, for inspection and approval. If the offering did not meet certain standards (and they hardly ever did), they were required to sell what they brought and purchase an acceptable offering from the Temple market, themselves being responsible for the difference in price; and,
- For those who preferred to wait until they reached the Temple to buy their offering, they were forced to trade their native currency for a special Temple currency, usually at a less than favorable exchange rate, prior to the purchasing of their offering.
If it is not apparent, the "moneychangers" who ran the Temple market were set to enjoy quite a nice profit. . .usually at the worshipers' expense. Stepping into a worshiper's shoes, imagine approaching the Temple, anticipating your encounter with the Almighty, dizzy with excitement at the prospect of realizing something you may only get to participate in once or twice in your lifetime (especially if you were foreign), only to spend the entire time fussing and fretting over the money you just lost in the process of making yourself acceptable to not God, but those who claimed to work for Him! Your encounter with the Divine has been adulterated by the distraction of the tedious and mundane, and you have the slight distaste in your mouth of one who's just been mugged in Central Park.
It's easy to see why Jesus was so incredibly angry. . .but that's not the point of the story. The 17th-century painting, Christ Chasing the Moneylenders from the Temple (image) by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione shows the golden nugget beneath the emotional trappings of the account. At first glance, one notices not the act of Jesus' wrath at this injustice, but the absolute carnage and chaos and filth that clutters up the house of prayer and worship. Only by getting past the mess in the foreground do we find a tiny representation of the Master as He does His business.
The Divine is almost completely hidden by the carnal.
That is the message of this story.
It's not the issue of righteous indignation and anger that should move us, it's the necessity of keeping the Temple clean and accessible to those who seek God. And as much as we would like to interpret this to mean "No food or drink in the sanctuary, and no bake sales on Sunday", that also is not the point.
The Temple of God is none other than the Church - not the building of wood and stone, but the building of lively stones that house His Spirit. That's you, that's me, that's everyone who claims the Name and Cross of Christ. And over the millenia, we, the Church, the Body of Christ, the Temple, have allowed so much filth and muck and grime of the world to infiltrate us that no seeker has a chance of encountering God through our lives. It is that which Christ comes again and again to root out, to cleanse, to annihilate. For we, who are charged to be a house of prayer, a conduit by which a hungry soul can encounter Divine Love and Forgiveness, are met with rites and creeds and requirements of the law that were never established by God, but have been put in place to control who comes and who goes and to determine who is worthy of partaking of the blood and body of Christ. We have turned God's house of prayer into a den of thieves, robbing lost souls of their opportunity to hear and repent and be saved.
Jesus condemned the religious leaders of His day for something similar: "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in" (Matthew 23:13). Not only did they refuse to embrace the truth that Jesus presented, but they kept others from experiencing the freedom He offered! The moneychangers in the Temple market were at the very edge of worship, but refused to go in, and kept the worshipers from experiencing the divine touch they craved.
Can you see the Church today? We've become so lost in the mess of legalism and materialism and self-realism and psycho-babbelism...not only are we ourselves not truly experiencing the Kingdom, but we are shutting it off from those who are desperately seeking it.
Christian! Allow the divine wrath of God to overturn your tables and cleanse what has been defiled! The salt is dangerously close to losing its savor, the lamp is nearly extinguished! It is time to allow the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit to re-sanctify the Temple of God...for after the Temple is cleansed, then and only then people will hang onto every word pouring forth from the mouth of God, who dwells within.
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