Jesus Cleanses the Temple

HOLY WEEK DEVOTIONAL – MONDAY, MARCH 25th

Christian Running, College Minister

Todays Reading: Mark 11:15-19

Starting holy week, Monday was likely the day Christ entered and cleansed the temple in Jerusalem. In today’s reading, and any reading for that matter, we need to understand the context. Jesus has just entered Jerusalem at the beginning of the week of Passover. Many pilgrims would be traveling to the city to offer sacrifices to God. For this reason, many vendors would set up shop to sell kosher animals that were fit to be sacrificed. Unfortunately, this had led to price gouging and many of these vendors taking advantage of pilgrims from foreign lands. Meanwhile, the temple authorities were allowing all of this to occur. This is the context in which Christ comes in and begins driving out the livestock and flipping the tables of money changers. In doing so we see the fulfillment of several prophecies. For example, Christ is the purifier of the temple, the people, and the land. The purification of these three was common practice so that God might dwell among the people. Furthermore, these things likely took place in the Court of the Gentiles, which helps us understand Jesus' quotation within our passages. His quote is a combination of two passages, Isaiah 56:8 and Jeremiah 7:11. The first passage speaks of God’s house as a place for all to worship God and the second condemns those who hinder this act.

These two passages help us see what Christ is doing. Here He is opposing the contemporary religious authorities that were oppressing many who sought to worship God. His actions foretell of the coming judgement of Israel and the temple. But, close to home for many of us, we also see Christ acknowledging the Gentiles’ inclusion in the kingdom of God. This foreshadowing then finds its fulfillment in Christ’s greatest work: the Cross. By dying in our place, He has opened the way that we might come to Him in pure worship. The temple authorities had lost sight of these things and began practicing a form of spiritual elitism, supposing that their ability to meet with God was an innate quality and not God’s pure grace.

As we go through holy week, let us meditate on God’s graciousness toward all who desire to worship Him. May we be grateful for His goodness to us who once were far off, and now have been brought near. We who had no right, no claim on the promises of God, have now been made a part of His family and given a full inheritance through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Christian Running, College Minister

Additional Readings: Malachi 3:1-5; Isaiah 56:6-8; Jeremiah 7:4-11; Ephesians 2:13-14