Zeal Monday (as I call it) is commonly remembered as the day Jesus clears the temple. Check out the text from Mark:
The next day, when they had come out from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came to see if perhaps he might find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. Jesus told it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” and his disciples heard it.
They came to Jerusalem, and Jesus entered into the temple, and began to throw out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of those who sold the doves. He would not allow anyone to carry a container through the temple. He taught, saying to them, “Isn’t it written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations?’ But you have made it a den of robbers!”
The chief priests and the scribes heard it, and sought how they might destroy him. For they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching.
When evening came, he went out of the city.
Okay so imagine this: all 250,000 people into Jerusalem to make sacrifices at the temple. How many entrepreneurs does it take to figure it out that some people are not going to bring a #2 pencil to a scantron test? So what do you do? Let’s set up shop at the temple, sell some sacrificial animals, and make a bundle off the event!
In a sense, all the reverence of the event turns into a ‘going through the motions’ session. I always pictured this event as one where there were about 100 people standing around making bids on goats. But the real impact came when I read how many people were in the city. This was no small gathering. Imagine how difficult it would have been to come into the temple area with a reverent heart before the LORD and earnestly pray when you had all of these people bartering for animals that weren’t their own in order to sacrifice them as a formality.
Prophecy Fulfilled: Psalm 69:9 – “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
These sacrifices were weak at best. When Jesus clears the temple a clear message is sent to those who were present: “You are wrong. Everything about this is manufactured. It has lost its beauty. This is not about a relationship anymore. You have made it about a pithy requirement.”
Questions to Think About:
- Have you ever ‘run through the motions’ in worship or prayer?
- Have you ever paid for someone else to engage in bringing the sacrifice so you didn’t have to get your hands dirty or because it was easier that way? (think missions)
- What does it look like to fully engage the disciplines of worship and prayer in your own life? What value do you place on them?
