Cleansing the Temple

Matthew 21:12-17; Mark 11:15-19

He overturned the tables again — this time, everyone knew what it meant.

The day after his triumphal entry, Jesus walks into the temple courts and does what he did at the start of his ministry — but now with the weight of everything that's come between. He drives out the buyers and sellers, overturns the money changers' tables and the benches of the dove sellers. My house will be called a house of prayer, he declares, but you have made it a den of robbers. The blind and lame come to him in the temple, and he heals them. Children shout: Hosanna to the Son of David! The chief priests and teachers of the law are indignant. Jesus is claiming the temple — and the authority that goes with it. The religious leaders begin looking for a way to kill him.

• Authority
• Righteous Anger
• Worship
• Confrontation