On Holy Monday, Jesus cleansed the temple. He “poured out the coins of the money-changers” and “overturned [their] tables and the seats of those who sold pigeons.” He “drove out those who sold and those who bought in the temple” along with their “oxen and sheep and pigeons.”
In the four gospels, we are given only two reasons Jesus took this action:
- “do not make my Father’s house a house of trade”
- “you have made it a den of robbers”
In scripture, some of the harshest condemnation is directed at those who seek monetary advantage over their neighbors. Isaiah speaks condemningly of “grinding on the faces of the poor.” The salient sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were not sexual but financial; they were withholding substance from the poor. Doing the same in the Father’s “house of prayer” led Jesus to take aggressive action to make His message clear: foreigners and poor people are not to be taken advantage of, especially when it comes to religious practice.
Much to the dismay of those who seek to justify their anger and contention, in no verse do we find that Jesus hurt, injured, or singled out criticism of any particular vendor. Instead, His actions were directed at tables and chairs and moving people through seemingly erratic behavior, not through physical harm.
When you think about cleansing the temple, remember the reason: to eradicate unfair trade and warfare on lower classes, not to give us a caveat to His unmistakable mission of peace.