This scene comes in His 2nd Visit to the Temple according to Mark 11. After a deep night of communion at Bethany, at the house of Lazarus, Jesus had already surveyed the Temple the day before, and been silent about what He saw. Now after cursing the fig tree, He now enters the House of God, and expels the merchandisers in the Temple courts. It is the 2nd time He has done this, John records a separate incident in John 2.
The zeal for original purpose of the Temple taken from Isaiah 26 means that Jesus is making a statement about the Temple, about what process had taken place for the Temple to be like the fig tree, full of leaves, no fruit. What the priesthood had become, and what was lost in the initial stages. Certainly this was not Zerrubabel’s temple, as Herod had added his own touches to make it look majestic, but for these alterations needed funds from the population to do it, and a system of merchandise was installed to maintain the upkeep. In short the Temple purpose had shifted from a place of worship and prayer to a place of buying sacrifices.
Here Jesus is showing us that original purposes of His ministries and ministers is what He is zealous about. Once we adopt other worldly strategies to bring growth, we have departed. Jesus inspects on one visit, and then He comes to remove. In Revelation 2, Jesus rebukes the Church of Ephesus, a Church that by Paul’s letter had come to a place of revelatory maturity. Yet in this process, this richness did not pass from the first generation of believers to the 2nd. The 2nd had the forms without the love. Jesus threatened to visit, and His visitation was to remove her Lampstand.
The warning in this Passover season is that when Jesus is completing His Mission He makes sure His Ministers and Ministries are purely within their original call and purpose. That is so that whatever Jesus is about to bring in, it is inclusive of our call and purpose in those new things. The Temple will be shaken and her emptiness will be made bare, a gloryless house to a gloryless priesthood. The Temple Veil will be torn from the bottom to the top. This would expose the truth, and when God does this, all will see who are in the Priesthood. It will cover the faces in spiritual shame. The Sanhedrin complicit with the Empire to sacrifice the Holy Messiah, and now as He breathes His last is the exposure complete, a shaking like never before felt. Then a physical tearing, like angelic hands tore the curtain in twain.
The veil symbolized separation, now torn, to expose the emptiness of what was now an old order superseded by a New Covenant. So in this Tuesday Jesus expels mammon, and in His death He will take His Glory. Expose the falsehood, and it would be 40 years until this demolition be complete. Such is the zeal that Jesus had for His House. And here in Mark 11 we see a glimpse that this was the start of a process.
It is a warning however to us today. We must be reminded that once we leave our original and pure purpose we risk losing everything. How many churches and congregations have disappeared because what they expected by His Visitation was a visitation to remove the very thing that distinguishes the congregation from a worldly gathering, the Presence of the Most High.
May we remain with an undivided heart in His Purposes!
Maranatha!
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