Monday: Cleansing the Temple

In Mark, Jesus looks around Jerusalem on Sunday but then returns to Bethany (Mark 11:11). He then returns the next day, on Monday, and throws the money changers out of the temple.

Mark frames Jesus' action in the temple with the cursing of the fig tree. This "intercalation" of stories pushes us to interpret the one story with the other in some way. So we are likely to understand Jesus' action in the temple as a sign of judgment on an Israel that has failed to bear fruit.

The reason for the judgment is that the temple was meant to be "a house of prayer for all nations" (Mark 11:17). The passage this quotes from Isaiah 56 is about welcoming the foreigner who joins with Israel as well as the outcasts of Israel. The theme of including the lost sheep of Israel seems to have been a major one for Jesus and of course the inclusion of the Gentiles became a major theme for Christianity.

In contrast, the leaders of Israel had made the temple "a den of thieves" (Jeremiah 7:11). This passage warns that Israel will not escape God's judgment simply because the place where God picks up His mail is located. Israel continued to steal, commit adultery, burn incense to Baal, etc... and yet somehow thought it would escape God's judgment?

Matthew seems to build on the "house of prayer for all" theme by going on to mention that blind and lame came to him.

In part, Jesus' action in the temple tells us that no one ever gets a "pass" just because they have the name of Christian. As Paul says in Romans 11, if God cut off the natural branches and grafted we Gentiles in, God can just as well cut off grafted in branches. Israel in Jeremiah and Jesus' day viewed their Jewish identity as an insurance against God's judgment despite their actions. But there is no automatic security for God that ignores our lives.

Their warning particularly had to do with the way they excluded the outcasts of Israel and the Gentiles. Can anyone say Galileans? Where are we vulnerable to the charge that we have not done it to the least of these?

Winks for Drury: In Matthew and Luke this appears to happen on the same day as Jesus entry into Jerusalem rather than the next day (e.g., Luke 19:41-46). Matthew also has the action in the temple before the cursing of the fig tree, as opposed to Mark (Matt. 21:9-13, 18-22).

John of course tells of the temple action in the first year of Jesus' ministry and tells nothing of it during passion week (John 2:13-22). Also, the reasons behind the action seem different from the synoptics. In John, it seems to be the buying and selling itself that is targeted. This is puzzling, since buying and selling was a necessary part of temple use for those who came from a distance.

However, John may also link Jesus' action in the temple with its eventual destruction. John may want us to understand Jesus' resurrection as the end of any need for a temple, as Hebrews also indicates: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will build it up" (John 2:19).