Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.” The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself’?” He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

– Matthew 21:12-17

Jesus generally evokes a feeling of love, warmth and forgiveness. However, as he entered the temple to find cheats and selfish acts of changing money, he became angry. He overturned tables and seats but never physically harmed the money changers. It seemed out of character until we consider his words “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.” After Jesus cleansed the temple of the robbers and put an end to their selfish abuses, he proceeded to cure the blind and the lame who traveled to him in the temple. He loved and welcomed all those in need. Children began to cry out “Hosanna to the Son of David” which angered the chief priests in the temple who refused to acknowledge his holiness. Ignoring the chief priests, Jesus acknowledged and accepted the praise and presence of the little children. We learn from this passage that Jesus sees a temple as a place of holy and selfless worship, a welcome place for those suffering and in need to be healed, and a place that respects little children who praise his name.

PRAYER:

Dear God, may my heart serve as a temple where I selflessly worship your holiness, where I seek and welcome those in need and comfort them, and where I acknowledge and respect all brothers and sisters, even the smallest among us. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

– Bonnie Bacik