Thinking about the season of Lent

Jesus' cleansing of the Temple in Jerusalem is a familiar theme during the season of Lent.  You probably remember the story: Jesus threw the animal sellers, their animals, and the money changers out of the temple in anger.  (The Biblical passage is reprinted below.)  In the Gospel of John this account comes at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, and it sets the focus of Jesus' ministry to people. You might think this is a story saying it is acceptable to show anger toward those who do not believe the way we do.  But it is not.  Rather, the story can be better understood as counseling us to take our worship of God in a serious manner.  The merchants and money-changers in the temple had turned worship into a commercial transaction.  But Jesus wanted them--and us--to put God and God's action at the center of our worship.


So the story of Jesus cleansing the temple is reminding us to put God in the center.  Is worship of God number one in our lives?  Do we need to be "shaken" up  in our lives so that we will think and evaluate our lives and worship?


May our worship grow away from something that is just as mechanical as the old sacrifices in the temple had become  and grow into a realization and invitation for God to come to our hearts.  May we surrender all with an attitude of gratitude, and may we realize that God is in every breath that we take. Jesus is Our Saviour!  God is on our Side!  We will truly experience this when we talk to others and read the Bible to them.  


Happy Lent!


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Here is the account from John 2:13 - 17: 


When the Passover Feast, celebrated each spring by the Jews, was about to take place, Jesus traveled up to Jerusalem.  He found the Temple teeming with people selling cattle and sheep and doves.  The loan sharks were also there in full strength.


Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right.  He told the dove merchants, "Get your things out of here!  Stop turning my Father's house into a shopping mall!"  That's when his disciples remembered the Scripture, "Zeal for your house consumes me."


Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, The Message Remix Version, copyright © 2003 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.