HOLY MONDAY

In case you were worried that a week spent in the scriptures would lose your attention even for a moment, enter Jesus into the temple. What unfolds next is one of the most well-known scenes in biblical history, which, when viewed through the lens of the culture, points us once again to Jesus’ true purpose for this week.

What it must have been like to stand in that temple, a crowd pressing you from every angle and the shouts of buyers and sellers alike assaulting your senses until it was hard to focus. Imagine the sudden commotion and stunned silence that would have fallen over the people like a cloud as Jesus, with hands worn and calloused, gripped the tables and benches and heaved them so. What did Jesus' voice sound like as over the sound of coins rattling to their resting place, he whispered, spoke, or shouted the words of Jeremiah, “My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.”

Here, friends, context is key. Jesus’ righteous anger was not pointed at the mercantilism, for it was just a symptom of a greater sickness. No, his indignity was pointed at the heart of the issue. Misuse of the temple grounds had led the people of God away from putting on display the prophetic vision of the new creation. The people of God had packed the outer courts in order to make a profit off of what should have been worshipful, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, in doing so, they left no physical space for gentiles and outcasts to come to seek the true God. Have you? Perhaps you are a believer today, anxious to catch another glimpse of Jesus, eager to join once again in the chorus that greets him there, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Have you packed your heart and mind, or even your church, with so many things that you’ve forgotten your doors are to be flung wide so that Jesus can be on display and call people to himself through your life? Wonderer, maybe you are still following this supposed Messiah with an investigative eye, waiting to see if He is who He claims to be. Have you left any space in your mind for the possibility that all of this is real and that there is a God who paid a price to be in a relationship with you?

Either way, there is much to consider and many days still to come.

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All to Jesus I surrender

Humbly at His feet I bow

Worldly pleasures all forsaken

Take me, Jesus, take me now