Read Matthew 21: 12-17 

 

On Monday of Passion week, Jesus cleared the temple.

 

 I can just imagine how the disciples might have felt when they woke up that morning. Just the day before, Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem to shouts of hosanna.

 

Earlier that week the Roman Consul, Pontius Pilate, would have ridden into Jerusalem from His Headquarters in Caesarea. Pilate would have made it a point to be in the City for the Passover because of the crowds that would be there. It would be a potentially volatile time.

 

Pilate would have ridden into the city on a warhorse with a full military escort so everyone would know who was in charge. When Jesus rode in on Sunday, he humbly came into the city from the opposite direction on the colt of a donkey--everything he did was the opposite. What he did would be seen as mocking the Romans and their military authority.

 

The crowd loved it and loved him.

 

Jesus was at the zenith of his popularity. The disciples may well have been anticipating what might be coming next. Maybe they were wondering if Jesus was finally going to be taking his throne and push the Romans out. I suspect they couldn’t believe what he did next.

 

One of the acts the Messiah was expected to do was to take authority over the temple. Jesus did it in a way no one expected and few appreciated. He grabbed a whip of cords and began turning over tables. While he was running out the money changers he was shouting, “My house will be called a house of prayer, ’but you are making it 'a den of robbers.’” That’s the same thing the prophet Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 7 when he was prophesying about the destruction of the first temple twenty years after that.

 

The religious leaders couldn’t have missed that or misinterpreted that. And that’s when they committed to killing Jesus.

 

Now Jesus had alienated the Roman leaders, and the Jewish leaders both. I can just see the disciples burying their faces in their hands thinking, “and just when things were going so well.”