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.
– Mark 11:15-18
Last week I wrote about Jesus being in the Temple at the age of twelve asking questions of the priests, teachers, and religious leaders there. This week Jesus is back in the Temple as a grown man… as the one who was hailed as the Messiah… the ‘anointed one.’ He is asking questions again but also making a statement which caused people all around to ask their own questions about God and faith and the future of the world.
Do you have questions about God and faith and the future of the world? I do still… but my list isn’t as long as it used to be… as some of my questions weren’t really all that important… at least not so much that others plotted to kill me… but maybe you have some which need tended to… and this passage may help…
I’m not sure how many readers out there know about the makings of the Temple in Jerusalem in Jesus’ day. It was built by Solomon about 950 B.C. on the site where Abraham almost sacrificed to God his son Isaac… obviously a sacred spot in Jewish history. That Temple was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar around 587 B.C. and then rebuilt about 75 years later and then around 20 B.C. King Herod added on to it and that’s the Temple Jesus walked into … a space big enough to fit 25-30 football fields into. Whoah! And you thought Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal Church USA) in downtown Houston was big!
The Temple platform had designated spaces for the men to worship… a separate section for the Jewish women to gather and further up there was an area for the Temple priests to meet which led to the Holy of Holies where the chief priest offered up the sacrifices to God… and on the very outside perimeter was a space for the Gentiles… the ‘other people’… but who respected YHWH… the Hebrew God… but hadn’t fully committed to the idea of total trust… meaning a lot of people could gather there on any given day and the crowd was exceptionally large during the celebration of Passover… when the Jewish faithful remembered their deliverance from the Egyptian Pharoah by Moses almost 1600 years before… after being held captive for over 400 years before that… so being at the Temple at Passover was a pretty big deal…
And what did Jesus find when he arrived… perhaps almost the kind of chatter and selling going on you’d find at the Houston Rodeo every year… in a place bigger than 30 NRG stadiums sitting side by side… and when Jesus arrives he remembers what the prophet Isaiah wrote more than 700 years before… ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’ (Isaiah 56:7) NOTE: I doubt anyone will remember what I wrote 70 years from now let alone 700 years…!
And what does this mean? By turning the tables of the moneychangers upside down and shooing the animals and vendors out… he returned the area for the Gentiles back to its intended purpose… a space for prayer for all nations… all people… and what might our world look like if all churches actually did just that? Make room for outsiders? To ask questions? To share ideas? Faith matters! It seems there’s still work for us all!
