Mark 11:15-19

Passage

They came to Jerusalem.  Jesus once more goes to the temple.  Immediately Jesus begins to clear out the temple from all of the vendors and moneychangers.  He would not allow anyone to carry anything into the temple.  Jesus then quotes Isaiah 56:7 and says that the temple of the Lord should be a house of prayer for the nations.  Jesus then quotes Jeremiah 7:11 and says that His contemporaries have turned it into a den of thieves.  When the crowds became astonished at His teaching, the chief priests and the temple authorities began to seek a way to kill Jesus.  When it was evening, Jesus left the city.

Thoughts for Today

First Thought:

Jesus immediately goes to the temple.  Again, He is demonstrating prioritization.  God comes first.  However, Jesus also knows that it is time to be direct about where the root of human sinfulness happened to be among the Jews.  The problem centered on their worship practices.  They weren’t about putting people in touch with God.  They were about being profitable and being seen as successful.  For the Jewish leaders, temple was about affluence and importance, not relationship.  It is a common mistake to make.

Why is it so easy to get caught up in the world’s definition of success, even in church?  How can we try to avoid getting caught up on the wrong things?

Second Thought:

Once more, Jesus demonstrates his command over scripture.  However, Jesus is quite crafty about how He does it.  There is a message not just in the verses He picks, but the context of the verses that He picks.  First of all, the quote from Isaiah 56:7 is a quote from a section of Isaiah speaking about how salvation would come to the “nations” (Gentiles).  Jesus is reminding the Hebrew people that after their exile to Babylon they were supposed to be about helping the Gentiles come into a relationship with God.  This leads us into the quote from Jeremiah.  Jeremiah was the prophet in Jerusalem as the Babylonians conquered the city.  He was there for the siege and the last days.  Jeremiah talks again and again that the Hebrew people are going into exile because they aren’t doing what the Lord asks of them.  What is Jesus’ point?  Jesus is telling the Hebrew people that they have continued to miss the boat.  God wants us to praise His name among the nations and help the world come into a relationship with Him.  When we opt for success in the eyes of the world instead of doing His mission, we fail.

How are you doing with proclaiming God’s glory to the people to whom God has called you?  Why is it important to continue to ask this question?  What happens when we hand this task off to someone else or lower the bar of expectation with respect to the task to which God has called us?

Third Thought:

The spiritual leaders wanted to kill Jesus.  When Jesus quits supporting the system, they want Him gone.  When Jesus actively works against the status quo, they want Him dead.  This is unfortunately common among human organizations – religious or secular.  Standing up for what is right is usually not accepted nearly as readily as standing up for whatever allows the status quo to continue to exist.  The result of such conflict is usually pretty messy.  In the end, it is Jesus’ assertion of truth that gets Him killed.

Why do people in power resist the truth?  What lengths do people in power or wealth go to keep what they have?  How can we try to arrange our spiritual life so as to avoid that mistake as often as possible?

Passage for Tomorrow: Mark 11:20-25