Day Two of Passion Week

Think on these things today.

(Matthew 21:12-17)

Jesus, fresh from His triumphal entry, where hundreds of people lined the streets to welcome Him into Jerusalem, went to the temple.  When He found it being grossly misused, He began to passionately cleanse the temple as He exclaimed, “My house shall be called the House of Prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” (Matthew 21:13)

By doing this, Jesus was proclaiming to all generations that He had the right to determine how the temple was to be used and to purge it of corruptions.  As God’s Son, the temple was His dwelling place, the place where the worship of God was to be especially known. In cleansing the temple, Jesus was revealing how men were to treat and use the temple of God.

After Jesus cleansed the temple, He healed the blind and the lame there.  Then adults and children began worshipping Him as they cried out to Him, “Hosanna!”  Jesus commended the children on this day and quoted Psalm 8:2, “Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants God has perfected praise?” (Matthew 21:16)

It is interesting to note that Jesus began and ended His ministry by cleansing the temple.  The importance of the temple as God’s house of prayer and worship was thereby demonstrated.

Two wonderful things happened when the temple was cleansed of its corruptions:

1.  Those in need were able to come to Christ and have their needs met.
2.  Christ was able to take His rightful position within the temple and to receive the worshippers.

We are now the temple of God.  It is imperative that we keep our temple clean from the impurities of the world.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17  “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?   If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him.  For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.“

It was a long day for Jesus, and the cross was looming just ahead of Him . . . but there was much to do before then.