Matthew
21:12-17 “Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who
bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers
and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, "It is
written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a
'den of thieves.'" 14 Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the
temple, and He healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and scribes saw the
wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying,
"Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant 16 and said to
Him, "Do You hear what these are saying?" And Jesus said to them,
"Yes. Have you never read, 'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have perfected praise'?" 17 Then He left them and went out of the city
to Bethany, and He lodged there.”
The
primary issue was that Father’s house had been compromised. It was to be a
house of prayer, a place of singular devotion. Instead, it had become cluttered
with commerce. The temple was polluted.
I think
that Jesus had been watching the growing duplicity all of his life. I imagine
that it started something like this. Throughout Jesus’ childhood, Mary and
Joseph had told Him the stories surrounding His birth. Life unfolded in their
family with constant mystery, wonder, and explanation.
“Who was
this child?”
“What is
his destiny?”
“One day
we will go to Jerusalem. All will be clear once we visit the temple and make
sacrifice.” Jesus had heard this explanation repeatedly. It filled his childish
heart with hope and longing.
One day,
an idea occurred to the boy Jesus. He would raise a calf to adulthood and offer
it as sacrifice to God at temple in Jerusalem. He shared his dream with Joseph.
They made preparations. Joseph assisted Jesus to select a calf to be raised
without blemish as a sacrifice to God at temple. Jesus cared for the calf.
Raised it. Protected it from harm and injury, and raised it to adulthood.
When Jesus
was twelve, it was time for the family to go to temple and make sacrifice.
Jesus’ heart was filled with anticipation and excitement. He was going to
temple to worship the Heavenly Father. He would make sacrifice to God.
As a
family, they made the trek on foot from Nazareth to Jerusalem. The trip
consumed an entire week. When they arrived in Jerusalem, Jesus was excited to
get to temple. Joseph explained to Jesus that the bull must be without blemish
to be an acceptable sacrifice. Jesus washed and brushed the animal’s coat to
perfection. The moment was at hand.
Temple
sacrifice required an inspection by the priest assigned that duty. Joseph knew
that the inspection process was often less than honorable. He knew that the
animal risked pronouncement as “blemished,” not because of any physical
blemish, rather because of the profiteering priesthood.
I imagine that
the boy Jesus watched closely as the inspecting priest examined the young bull.
When the priest began wagging his head from side to side, Joseph knew that the
sacrifice had been rejected. The priest recognized them as country folks from
out of town. He could tell by their speech that Joseph and Jesus were from
Galilee. The priest thought it unlikely that they would hinder their return to
the Galilee by taking their intended sacrifice home. He pointed them to the
stalls of animals.
Crestfallen,
Joseph and Jesus made their way to the animal stalls. Joseph was astonished at
the lowball offers the keepers of the animals gave him. But what could he do?
He bargained as best he could, and accepted a disappointing offer. Joseph knew
full well that the young bull with which he was parting would enter the temple
herd and be marketed as an unblemished sacrifice, completing the cycle of fraud
at Father’s house.
Next was
the matter of purchasing a sacrifice. Joseph and Jesus reviewed the small
collection of coins they had received in exchange for the bull. They studied
the prices for unblemished bulls for sale in the temple Court of the Gentiles.
Unaffordable. They examined the prices for unblemished lambs for sale, still a
respectable offering. Unaffordable. They found themselves at a table stacked with
cages of doves for sale, the offering of the poor. A dove was the only
sacrifice Joseph could afford this day.
I imagine
that the pollution at Father’s house was a central topic of conversation
between the twelve-year-old Jesus and the temple lawyers. I suppose that the
questions Jesus raised ranged from theology to practice. I envision the lawyers
were amazed that a boy could innocently and harmlessly point out the pollution
of Father’s house and the Law’s the demand of purity. The lawyers were
dumbfounded with the boy Jesus’ insights into the doubleminded nature of their
worship. Prayer had become comingled with profiteering. He pointed to the
glaring fault of the duplicitous nature of their worship with the innocence of
a child, the wisdom of the aged, and the idealism of a leader.
I think
that something was birthed in Jesus’ heart that day. He was angry that Father’s
house had been compromised. He was sad that the priests were corrupted by money
and power. He grieved for the exploitation of the poor. Something had to be
done to right this wrong. Obstructing access to God through pride and greed was
unjust. It was wrong. It was immoral. It could not stand.
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