Cleansing the Temple: John 2.13–22 (Day 346)

Pray

Lord, open my ears to hear what you have to say to me; open my heart to love your word, and open my mind to understand your truth.

Read

2 Chronicles 13 Revelation 3 Haggai 1 John 2

Daily reflection: John 2

After 2,000 years in which the Church has become a settled part of society, one of the risks we face is that Jesus becomes rather domesticated. He was not really like that, though. Here we read about him chasing out merchants, money-lenders and assorted livestock from the Temple. It's somewhere between an Ezekiel-style symbolic action (the prophet had to eat a scroll and break a hole through a wall, among other things) and an act of civil disobedience – almost a one-man riot. His action was a shocking breach of decorum: he attacked the way things were.

It's tempting to draw parallels with modern-day acts of disobedience like the Occupy movement or Extinction Rebellion climate change activism. But Jesus was a rebel with a particular cause. He struck at the heart of the religious authority that controlled the access of the people to God. The merchants and moneylenders were profiting from believers' devotion. They were making people pay for what God had given, and Jesus was outraged. So his 'cleansing of the Temple' is far more uncomfortable for Christians today than perhaps we realise. What are the barriers we put in the way of people coming to faith? What are the things in our hearts and our churches than need to be cleansed? If these are questions we find hard to answer because we can't see the problem – well, probably the throngs who crowded the Temple didn't see the problem either. It was just how it was. Jesus – shockingly and violently – taught them otherwise.

Pray

God, let me be willing to be shocked by Jesus out of my complacency. Help me to face up to where I've fallen short, and be prepared to change.