“My house will be a house of prayer,” Jesus cried out as he upended the tables of the money lenders, “but you all are turning it into a den of robbers. Have you not read that it is written, ‘my house will be a house of prayer for all nations’?”
Doves, pigeons, ceremonial ephemera, and money was scattered as Jesus turned the tables. He cleared the Court of the Gentiles of the moneychangers, and merchants, turning the tables on how the temple was operating. This outer court was the place that the nations had been given to come to learn about God and God’s ways. This was a Holy Place. Those doing business in the temple were crowding out the real business of the temple.
As the dust and noise settled in the temple court they came to Him. Those who were troubled, those who were suffering, those who needed relief now had space to come to Him, and they came one by one and He cured them.
When the chief priests and religious scholars saw the chaos of the clearing out, the amazing healings that took place, and heard the girls and boys echoing the refrain from two days ago on the streets of the city, singing, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry. They said to Jesus, “Do you hear what they are saying?”
The children circled Jesus singing, laughing, dancing, and Jesus, looking at them, said to the indignant men, “Yes, come on, I know that you have read the scriptures that say, ‘Children and infants will sing praise’.”
Jesus’ work at the temple was finished for the day and He left them, went out of the city, back to the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary in Bethany, and spent the night there.
On Tuesday of Holy Week we see Jesus making space for everyone to come to God, pushing back the tables and making room for every nation. We see Him making space for those who needed His help and clearing out the things that hindered them and kept them at a distance.
Take a minute to consider.
Is there anything that needs to be cleared out so you might experience the closeness in the way those who came to Jesus that day experienced it?
Is there a way that you can 'push back the tables’ to make room for someone else to come?