We stay with Jesus as he travels towards Jerusalem, his death and his resurrection.

FACEBOOK RESPONSES

Recent Facebook posts have had some interesting reactions:  

• “Our Lord was not a trouble maker he died to save sinners we must always remember this Amen”
• “Why is this medieval superstition bullshit on my … timeline?”
• “I think that’s quite offensive calling Our Lord Jesus Christ a troublemaker”
• “There is no god. Please wake up and understand. Genocide, pandemic, Bigotry and intolerance. This is the consequence of religion. If there was a celestial all seeing being he/she would not allow this to happen.”
• “5.116. And behold! Allah will say: “O Jesus the son of Mary! Did you say unto men, worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of Allah.?” He will say: “Glory to Thee! never could I say what I had no right (to say). “
• “Jesus is not a troublemaker. He is our saviour. Amen”
• “Amen”
• “Amen”
• “Amen”
• “He’s a very naughty boy”

My response to some of the quotes was simply to point them to four verses, Mark 11. 15-18.

‘Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. … And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching.’

The key statement, which comes only in Mark, is that ‘he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.’  That statement requires Jesus to instruct his followers to take over all the main gateway of the Temple, sufficient to overpower the Temple guards.   And it doesn’t sound like a one day affair.  The following day the chief priests ask him, “By what authority are you doing these things?”  Not “did you do these things?”  In other words the cleansing of the Temple was not a demonstration.  It was an occupation!  And while Jesus had the support of thousands off Galilean pilgrims, the Temple authorities could only look on helplessly.

TAKING OVER THE TEMPLE from ‘Jesus the Troublemaker, 11th Nisan’

Yeshua strode up the path to the double arched Golden Gate, past the temple guards on duty there and out into the Outer Court, followed closely by his twelve trainees.  He went up to one of the largest tables on which the currency exchangers bought Roman money and sold ritually pure Temple coinage.  The dealer looked up with a slightly shark-like smile at this imposing but clearly unsophisticated new customer.

“Shalom, my friend, How much money do you want to change?  You won’t get a better rate than mine in the whole of Yerushalayim.”

The tall, bearded northerner with piercing eyes just said, “Get out.”

“Pardon?”

“Out.  Out.  Out!”  With a rapid two-handed lift he tipped the heavy table up, spilling all the silver coins over the temple floor.  He strode over to the next table.  “OUT!” he shouted, and tipped that table over too.  Soon there was massive confusion with other pilgrims joining in the fun, the currency exchangers and the crowd, scrabbling for coins on the marble pavement

The temple guards rushed to the disturbance but were helpless before the manic uproar which now had infected hundred of the pilgrims.  Yeshua took the six pieces of thin rope from his belt and laid about with them right and left, striking cattle, lambs and their owners so that entire Outer Court was filled with shouting and screaming, cattle roaring, sheep baaing, fluttering doves set free from their overturned cages.  Too late , the temple guards realised that they had left all the gateways unattended and that they were now in the hands of burly Galilean pilgrims, looking threateningly pious, and outnumbering the guards two to one.

At each of the gates a traffic jam was developing as traders tried to bring their carts through the Temple as a short cut, only to be met by half a dozen muscled northerners who said, “You’re not going to bring that through here, are you, sunshine?”  And then they couldn’t turn round because the cart behind them was blocking their way.  It was absolute chaos.

The Roman tribune, looking out at the scene from the Antonia Fortress overlooking the Temple could see the anarchy, but saw no immediate threat to life.  He decided that to intervene would only make matters much much worse.  And the Temple authorities were completely wrong-footed.  When reports came in that the Galilean preacher Yeshua was responsible, they realised they had to move carefully.  “We’ll let him have his day, and tomorrow we’ll clip his wings,” they decided.

The disturbance gradually calmed down, only because the traders and currency exchangers admitted defeat and set up their stalls outside the Temple precincts, by the North Gate and the southern Huldah Gate.

Yeshua stood in the middle of Solomon’s Portico and proclaimed:

“Brothers and fathers!  You know how Adonai has spoken in the Haftorah, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the Goyim!’  The Torah tells us that we are to be a blessing for all the families on earth!  But we have allowed the cohanim to turn this sacred place into a robbers’ cave, a den of thieves!  And this at Pesach!  My brothers and fathers, let us worship the Eternal One not in mere words, but in spirit and in truth!”

(to be continued)

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I will continue Jesus’ Journey towards Easter over the next four weeks.

• 20/3 Challenged by the powers-that-be 
• 27/3 A Jewish Passover in Jerusalem
• 2/4 How to rig a trial
• 9/4 Where was Peter?  The key to making sense of the Easter story.

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