Painting by Carl Bloch “Casting Out the Money Changers” public domain
“Come to your Temple here with liberation
And overturn those tables of exchange.
Restore in me my lost imagination,
Begin in me for good the pure change.”
Malcolm Guite’s Holy Tuesday poem remembers Jesus visiting Jerusalem’s Second Temple as a Galilean pilgrim seeing the immense retail kiosks trading every sort of good and service for the first time. The observant Jew would have to negotiate a warren maze of aggressive hucksters to even find the Temple entrance, one of the ancient architectural wonders of the world. Jesus comes as a man of righteous anger, so overcome with disgust He begins throwing the kiosk tables over to ruin the wares piled high upon them. No gentle Jesus meek and mild here dear church. So…which part of my heart has become so retail, so transactional, so piled with unnecessary stuff I once thought valuable that Jesus needs to come a’cleanin’?! Which part needs cleaning, and not at all gently? Where is Jesus’ righteous anger rightly unleashed in my own life before I can even begin to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness? In your life?!