Day 23: Matthew 21
DEMOLITION MAN (21:12-17)
The story of Jesus turning over tables and chasing people out of the temple is a great one. It also doesn't necessarily fit with the image of Jesus that some of us have grown up with. I can remember growing up and seeing pictures of Jesus in white, stroking a lamb, with a golden glow behind his head. We think of Jesus more readily as peaceful, loving, gentle and kind. Jesus is absolutely all of these, but he is also so much more.
Jesus here shows that he is not just loving, but he is passionate. Whenever Jesus sees the sick, he has the compassion on them to heal them from their disease. Here, Jesus shows us how much he hates injustice. In John's version, Jesus makes a whip and chases them out. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a nice portrait of the angry Jesus chasing out the people who've turned the temple into a place to make a quick buck.
I asked a theology student for a bit more information, and he helped me out on this. Apparently the outer courts of the temple were meant to be for people who weren't Jews but wanted to come and hear more about God. It was intended for the Gentiles, for women, for slaves. The intention was that this would be a place they could come to ask questions about God and hear his word explained, as they weren't allowed to go further into the temple where the worship took place for the Jews.
As Jesus sees this place being corrupted by Jewish people exploiting others, this is what gets him angry. From this, we can see the passion that Jesus has to show that the kingdom of God is for everyone. He has spent plenty of time with lepers, beggars, tax collectors and women, demonstrating that the whole system of exclusivity is not the heart of God. Like most of you reading this, the outer courts is as far as I would have gone previously. I wouldn't have been allowed into the main temple, and certainly not into the Holy of Holies, with the presence of God. By coming to earth with that determination to call us all His people, Jesus is coming to break down that wall, to stop the differentiation between Jew and Gentile, men and women. He is coming to throw open the doors of His kingdom.
So let us remember the image. The image of an aggravated Jesus displaying just how passionate he is about his people. The passion that would drive him to the cross. He was not a man who meekly went to the cross because he just had to, but he was a man that determined to go to the cross because he had chosen to love us, whatever the cost. A man on a mission to lay down his life in the ultimate declaration of a God who longs to have a broken world reconnected to him.
I went to London recently. Somehow, the price of a first class ticket was the same as standard class, so I took it with both hands. That means you can go into the first class lounge. Where all food and drink is free. Chaos. I enjoyed my wait a lot, sitting with my free biscuits. I even had someone serving me coffee. In one way it felt quite flash. In another way, I felt like a fraud, like it wasn't where I belonged. I felt it was for better people, richer people, classier people and that I was only there because of some strange loophole which gave me a cheap ticket.
This is similar to what Jesus has done for us. He has made a way to come to a place which is too good for us. We may feel like we don't deserve it, but we are welcome. We could never pay the price to get into there, but we shouldn't feel that we don't belong. I look at the eternity that is mapped out for me and I get that feeling that it's too good, that I've blagged it a bit or found some kind of loophole. It is no loophole. It is the way into a relationship with God. This was always Jesus' intention.
As we consider our undeserved future, it's not just for us to feel unworthy. It's important that we feel loved, and that in turn we regularly appreciate what the entry price was, and the greatness of the man who was willing to pay it for us.
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