Holy Week: Holy Monday

Cleansing the Temple

The specifics as to what happened each day beginning Holy Monday through Holy Wednesday are not  detailed by the hour or sometimes even the day; however, there is enough information to discern what Jesus and His disciples did during this time. Jesus taught in the Temple, healed people, and faced the religious leaders. The one action that stands out though is the cleansing of the Temple.

This wasn’t the first time Jesus cleansed the Temple. In John 2:13-22, Jesus cleansed the Temple at the beginning of His ministry. At that time, Jesus, using a whip of cords, chased the merchants out of the Temple and overturned the tables, telling them to not make His Father’s house a “house of trade.”

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell of Jesus cleansing the Temple again, only now it’s toward the end of His ministry. This time, He didn’t use a whip and He called the sellers “robbers” (see Matthew 21:13), which seems a bit harsher than what He said previously.

Jesus was passionate about protecting His Father’s house and keeping it holy. The merchants were charging excessive amounts of money to those who wanted to purchase an animal for sacrifice. They may have been charging an excessive fee as well to those needing to exchange money in order to pay the Temple tax. Basically, they were profiting off a person’s need and desire to draw close to God.

Jesus also prohibited merchants loaded with merchandise from traveling through the Temple (Mark 11:16). They were using the Temple as a shortcut to get from one side of the city through to the other. ¹ Again, they were disregarding the sacredness of the Temple.

But there’s more to it than that. As I wrote here in a previous post, God-fearing Gentiles would also make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to observe Passover. Many of them needed animals for the sacrifice, but were unable to purchase them because the priests of the Temple had set up the market within the inner courts, where Gentiles were not permitted. They were essentially keeping the Gentiles from sacrificing an offering and robbing them of their worship.² It angered Jesus to see others kept away from God. They were disregarding the purpose of the Temple.

Jesus’ passion for maintaining the holiness of the Temple, His Father’s house, should encourage us to do the same. Of course, I’m not talking about our church buildings (though we should respect those as well), but of our own bodies. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple,” (ESV). We are God’s temple. Once we accept Jesus as our Savior, He gives us the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. Therefore, we should seek to live a holy life – one dedicated to pursuing righteousness and living out our God-given purpose.

Jesus modeled this for us throughout His life. He knew His purpose was to do the will of His Father (see John 6:38). He resisted temptation and avoided sin. He followed the way of the LORD and was obedient to Him (see John 15:10). And, He loved us to the point of sacrificing Himself for us.

We should all have the passion Jesus did for keeping His Father’s house holy. As He cleansed the Temple in Jerusalem, so His death on the cross cleansed us (if we accept it, that is). He calls us to be holy because He is holy. By living rightly and fulfilling our purpose, we are doing our part to keeping the temple of God clean and to keeping it holy.

_{1 Grassmick, John D. “Mark.” In The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, edited by J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985.
2 Grassmick, “Mark.” In The Bible Knowledge Commentary}