This Sunday, Jesus enters like a king into the city that will enthrone him upon a cross.
The disciples and all the people expect the overthrow of Rome.
The city is glutted. Swollen with over a million pilgrim Jews who have come with their families for Passover.
They walk with Jesus, praising and singing the promises of God, "Hosanna! Praise the Son of David!"
Translated: "Save now! You're the Victor, Yahweh's King, the Messiah, who will reign over us forever!"
Amid the cries of a million people, where does Jesus ride toward?
Watch Last Sunday's Sermon "Passionate - He Suffers As Me" from our Toward the Cross series.
He doesn't ride into Herod's palace, nor into Pilot's quarters...
He sets His face toward the Temple, and rides into His Father's house:
"And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, ‘Who is this?’ And the crowds said, ‘This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.’ 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. He said to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer,” but you make it a den of robbers.’
“And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 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, 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?”’ And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there” Matt. 21:10-17.
Did you realize that, on the heels of the Triumphal Entry, Jesus invades the Temple?
Why does He do that?
To cleanse the corruption.
It's His Father's house, the house He will inherit as a son...
He takes this building, this people, and these compromises seriously.
We might not even see it with our modern eyes, but Jesus cleanses:
The moneylending (Corrupt temple coin exchange rates that benefitted Herod and the religious leaders pocketbooks.)
The animal market (That made a killing, literally, off of rejecting pilgrim lambs for the high-priced temple flocks.)
The blockade of booths and tables and crowds that barred the way for outsiders and the broken who wanted to come and worship God the Father.
This area is called the Gentile court, where all those who were rejected by the law commands of Israel could, at the least, draw near to God in prayer and worship.
The corruption was financial, political, religious...but for Jesus, this was spiritual and personal.
For it affected the spiritual lives and the relationships of those the Father would draw closer.
And Israel's leaders, whether by convenience or by intention, had closed the path to God for the women, the children, the stranger, the foreigner, the beggar, the lame, the blind, the broken and basically everyone but the priests.
The Pharisees and religious leaders' corrupt desires and money-hungry politicizing had closed the door to God in their faces.
This is why Jesus rebukes them, saying:
“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in"Matthew 23:13.
So Jesus rides to the Temple, with the cries of Kingship ringing in His ears, and cleanses the corrupt religious marketplace for a purpose!
So people like you and me could come in!
He threw open the doors to the broken, hurting, and those hungry for God!
And then what happens?!
The rejected, broken, and societal rejects rush in!
"And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them" Matt. 21:14.
To the religious leaders’ dismay, children are shouting and dancing and parading at the display of God's love and power!
In their natural innocence, their untrained inhibitions erupt in view of Jesus' huge heart!
The religious leaders are fuming.
But they cannot stop Him.
They'll plot to kill Him.
But His death will only fling wider the gates, as thousands and millions of broken souls, like ours, flood into the Father's arms for healing and dance like children in praise!
Do you need to run to Him today?
Are you hungry to be with Him?
Can you dance before His love like a child would?
“For ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies [like us!] you have prepared praise’” Matt. 21:16(brackets are mine).
Let's rush into His arms, and praise Him like He deserves!
See you Sunday as we celebrate our King, who certainly is like no other.
Pastor Dave