Why did you cleanse the temple? | Dreaming Beneath the Spires
Why did you cleanse the temple?
It would have been so much easier
to pray in solitude for the filling of the Holy Spirit,
to think of God’s love for you,
to contemplate God,
to love your friends,
to think of all things that were
noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.
Cleansing the temple would mean
facing the rage and fury of those
whose cattle, sheep and doves you released
whose coins you scattered.
Within the week, you would be dead.
You cleansed the temple because
what they did was wrong.
It prevented prayer.
It cheated those who came to worship.
It filled the sanctuary set apart
for the Gentiles with noise.
It rewarded greed
You were there.
The rascals were there.
What they did was wrong.
And you could do something about it.
And so you did.
You made a whip of cords,
and you cleansed the temple
* * *
Matthew 21:12
12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’e]”>[e] but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
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