Matthew 21:12-16
12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,
“‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise’?”
Following Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem his procession headed straight for the temple. Moving from the Hosanna shouts of celebration Jesus immediately moved into cleaning mode. He overturned the tables and seats and said “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” From there the celebration continued as he began healing the blind and lame and the children cried out once again “Hosanna to the Son of David!” What a contrast.
As I read this scripture this morning I was immediately reminded of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 while addressing the sexual sins of the Corinthian church, Paul states “19do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So, glorify God in your body.”
While Jesus was busy cleaning his temple it is symbolic of the cleansing the Holy Spirit if allowed, will do in our “temples”. I was thinking that during this crazy time in our history, we have been given an opportunity to stop, think, reflect and press into our relationship with the Lord. Many of our excuses of too much work, not enough time have been removed and we have a very special opportunity to “clean house”. While I find I now have extra time to do some actual house cleaning I also have some time to do some cleaning of my “temple” - me. It’s time to get my priorities straight and put first things first and get rid of anything that gets in the way of my relationship with the Father. JB Cachila of Christianity Today in writing on this verse states “We've got to do some brutally-honest self-evaluating if we want to rid ourselves of the dirt called sin and worldliness. We've got to ask ourselves the hard questions, answer as truthfully as we can, and honestly reveal every single stain (sin) that we have.”
Lord, help us during this time to do the things that honour you, that honour the temple you reside in and we invite you Holy Spirit to root out the things that dirty our temple. Please let our temples be houses of prayer where we are in continual relationship with you. Help us to make the hard choices to put away things that hinder our relationship with you and fill us with the power of your spirit and guide us and help us to mature into full Christ-likeness.