Our reading today encompasses a few verses that, in most Bible translations, appear to be separate, with its own topics/titles. But, it’s important for us to remember that’s not how it was written. So, when we read them as one passage, as we did today, at first they may seem to not fit well together.

I want to show you a few things you might not have noticed before in these passages. To be clear, I’m referring to verses 41-44, which addresses Jesus weeping over Israel. And, verses 45-48, which addresses what’s known as the ‘cleansing’ of the temple.

If you haven’t read the email that went out on Friday, please do. Christiane and I wrote about verses 41-42, and challenged you to think more carefully about what it means to have access to God and yet not know Him. How performing rituals and sacrifices does not equate to knowing God’s heart and doing His will. 

Today I want us to look at the whole context of our passage, so we can have a better understanding of what Jesus was saying and doing here. 

So, here are verses 41 and 42:

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 

I want you to see that Jesus is weeping and saying this things over Jerusalem. More specifically, he’s talking about their rejection of Him, and the lack of peace that comes as a consequence of their own choosing. In verses 43-44, he continues:

For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

He’s still talking over Jerusalem. In a prophetic way now, he’s anticipating to them the destruction of the Temple.  It’s interesting to read “they will not leave one stone upon another in you”, and think about how the sacrificial system came to an end. You will see the connection between what he’s saying and what he’s about to do, and we can easily make association with Psalm 118:22-24, which is a messianic psalm, where it says: 

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.

This is the Lord’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.

This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it. 

It is such a powerful word. They rejected Jesus. The temple, the beautiful building on the Temple Mount became more important than God Himself – the One walking among them. 

Now, Jesus is saying: the temple will come to an end, the sacrificial system will come to an end. The physical stones they became so attached to, the religious practices that made them feel good about themselves… All that would come to an end. 

Jesus is the cornerstone. Jesus is our Temple.

We will continue to read this passage as it is in our reading. Without the ‘title’ or “heading”, which we all know was not included there by Luke, that what we are about to read is “Jesus cleansing the temple”. It seems that we not only included chapters #s, verses and titles, when it comes to this particular passage, you can often find commentaries implying anger as the motivation for what Jesus does. So, let’s read the Scriptures:

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”

47 And he was teaching daily in the temple. 

The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people were seeking to destroy him, 48 but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were hanging on his words. 

I want to go back and read again these couple of verses:

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, 

Ok, just one more time: 

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, 

This story is found in all four Gospels (Mark 11:15–19, Matthew 21:12–17, Luke 19:45–48, John 2:13–16). Many theologians believe that it happened twice, once at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (as it seems to be related in John), and once at the end (as we find in all other 3 accounts).  

Here’s one thing you won’t find in any description: nowhere it is said that Jesus was angry or despised the people or yelled at them. 

We have to be very careful to see God in the Scriptures for who God IS, not who we think he is based on our brokenness and limitations. That’s why Christiane and I are constantly talking about growing in intimacy with God, getting to know HIM. It’s in relationship that God reveals himself to us. We need the Holy Spirit, we need his grace to even open the Bible and approach it with humility… asking God to unveil the things we do not know.   

Having said all that, I want to propose to you another way of reading this whole passage. We just saw that He cried over Jerusalem, and prophesied about the destruction of the temple.

I will open a parenthesis here, because if you go home and read this passage in John 2, you will see that Jesus refers to His body being destroyed and built up again. There’s a direct connection between the temple as the Israelites knew, and Jesus Himself being the temple, who will die and be resurrected. He’s the One in whom we find rest, cleansing, sanctification (which is something the sacrificial system never really offered). Our sanctification comes from within // and that is the work of the Spirit.

Now, going back to Jesus entering the temple and turning the tables, some scholars believe that was perhaps a more practical  teaching moment. The passage continues by saying that He kept teaching in the temple daily.

Some even say that after his prophetic words about the destruction of the temple, He went on to show how transactional, corrupt, and spiritually dead the people were. Just like the prophets before Him would go around town giving people a visual reference for what the people was about to endure, Jesus is here saying that what the people are doing does not honor God. Rather than ‘cleansing’ the temple, he’s giving them a visual message of its destruction.

Instead of a desire to align their hearts to God in prayer, the people and their leaders were using their religiosity to cover their corruption. He says they’ve turned it into a “den of thieves”. A place where they hide from their misdoings. 

That’s why Jesus says to the Samaritan woman at the well that we are to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth – it is not about the mountain, the temple/the building, or their sacrifice; // it is about HIM. Our hearts and minds are to be aligned with His. 

I’ll end with these passage in Hebrews 10: 3-7, 16

But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’”

v. 16

“This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”

So, let us go forth with a pure heart and a renewed mind, honoring God in being One with Him.