Monday, March 30, 2015
Matthew 21:12-13; Luke 19:47a Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'" ... And He was teaching daily in the temple ...
MONDAY: CLEANING HIS FATHER'S HOUSE
Following His triumphant entry on Palm Sunday, Christ Jesus spent the night in Bethany and returned to Jerusalem the next day to proclaim the Law and the Gospel to the crowds gathered for the Passover festival.
But before He could teach in the temple, the Son of God needed to clean His Father's house. While Jesus had done this once before at the beginning of His ministry, any earthly house eventually eventually needs to be cleaned again, and the temple was no exception.
In this dwelling place of Jehovah, God wanted the believer to find pictures of the Messiah -- pictures of the forgiveness of sins in the sacrifices. They were to feel the joy of salvation. The Lord wanted to make Himself known as the God of grace. Instead, His house had been turned into a marketplace, full of the noises and smells associated with a marketplace.
Jesus drove the merchants out of the temple and spent the rest of the week not just showing pictures of the Messiah, but showing Himself to be the fulfillment of those pictures, Himself the Messiah, the Savior from sin.
That is what we see this week as we enter into God's house through His Word each day of Holy Week. We see there not animal sacrifice, but the very Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, preparing Himself to do just that on the altar of the cross.
