I am teaching this Sunday from Matthew 21 where Jesus enters Jerusalem and then cleanses the temple. The story of Jesus cleansing the temple particularly sticks out to me. Jesus had already cleansed the temple once at the start of His 3 year earthly ministry (John 2:13-22), and now in the last week of His ministry on earth, He does it again. Why?
It reveals the zeal Jesus had for the honor of the Father. He became angry, and legitimately so, because of the disdain the Jewish leaders had shown for His Father's name. In the incident recorded in John 2 it even says he made a whip with which to drive out the moneychangers. Jesus was angry that God had been so dishonored because of his reverence for the holiness of God.
Jesus was furious. His words to those working there, "It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers," are not intended to spare feelings. They are an outpouring of righteous indignation because God had been wronged.
The thing I find most interesting about this is how different it is from how He responds when His rights are illegitimately taken away, when He is beaten, forced to carry His own cross, and ultimately murdered. He did not cling to His own rights, but freely gave them up as He knew that that was ultimately what He was there to accomplish.
And that is exactly how we need to live, not insisting upon our own rights yet never willing to allow God's name to be trampled upon.
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