Do you not know that you are the temple of God,
and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If we are the temple of God, what does he find within the courts of our hearts that are meant to be set aside for his worship? Do we have modern equivalents of oxen, sheep, and doves being bought and sold? Is the hubbub of commerce drowning out the quiet voice of worship within us? What makes our spiritual temple too busy, too noisy, or too crowded for God? Is there something other than him taking up a majority of our internal world and leaving him only the leftovers?
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money-changers seated there.
There may be an empty veneer of spirituality reflected in the temple of our hearts. After all, these animals sold in the temple in the time of Jesus were there to be offered as sacrifices according to the law. Those who sold them, sold them so they could be used to that end. Those who purchased them did so for the sake of worship. Those who exchanged money helped to facilitate this since Roman coins could not be used for sacred purposes. And yet the atmosphere made it clear that the true purpose and original intention that all of this may have once had was lost. The commerce itself had come to dominate in such a way that individuals who actually desired to pray would have found it difficult to focus. The courts where all this was happening were intended to be a place where the Gentiles could worship, so that the temple could be a house of prayer for all people. But good luck worshiping in such an environment. One might as well try to do so at Walmart.
It doesn't have to be money. There are many things that can crowd God out of our inner world. And when this happens we discover that, like the temple in the time of Jesus, we not only don't have room for him, but we don't have room for other people. It is too noisy inside to communicate and far too cluttered with distractions to have peace. People in the temple mostly in some way benefited from all the chaos. And the fact that we ourselves reap some minor rewards for our chaotic inner life helps ensure that we don't challenge our own status quo. Jesus, however, knows that we are made for more.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money-changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
"Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father's house a marketplace."
At first when Jesus overturns the comfort of our lives we may be offended. We may wonder what right he had to do so and demand a sign to show his authority. But the peace and quiet that follow his incursion into the protected space of our ego may be so welcome that we end up applauding and thanking him for his effort. We may suddenly see what all of the hype surrounding the potential of prayer is about when we finally have to bandwidth to actually attempt it. When this happens, we won't want to go back to the way things had been.
We should thank the Lord that he desires to live in us as in a temple, and that zeal for this house prevents him from leaving us to our own resources, dwelling in the pitiful conditions we have created. The fact of the matter is that it took zeal on his part to achieve this transformation in us, because it didn't come cheaply. It took the destruction of the temple of his Body to put our old self to death so that we could be raised up as living stones in a new and spiritual temple. Because Jesus endured what he did for us we can now offer new and spiritual sacrifices, living our lives as gifts of thanksgiving in return for that which he first gave us. When we become gifts for Jesus in this way he also uses us to bless others. We become the living water that flows from the temple, giving life and well-being to waters others stagnant and dead.
There is a stream whose runlets gladden the city of God,
the holy dwelling of the Most High.
Phil Wickham - House Of The Lord
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