He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”

Let’s start with a brief description of the temple. This was Herod the Great’s temple. I had been under construction for decades and was still not finished at this time. This temple was much larger than Solomon’s temple, and as such had a much more elaborate design. Primarily it consisted of a series of concentrically walled off areas. The innermost sanctum was where the ark resided. It was separated by a great veil of heavy canvas that was about 12 inches thick, and only the high priest on high holy days was allowed to go there. The room outside of that was designated for placing the sacrifices of bread and wine before the lord…, only the levite priests were allowed to go there. Outside of this room was the inner courtyard, it was divided by the great altar where the blood sacrifices were conducted. Only the levites were allowed behind the altar, and only the “ritually clean” jewish men were allowed into this inner courtyard in front of the altar, to bring their sacrifices to the Lord. Outside of this courtyard, but still inside the walls of the temple, was the outer courtyard, also known as the Women’s Courtyard. This was where the the jews had setup a marketplace.

So why was Jesus taking this seemingly drastic action. The outer courtyard was still a holy place in the temple, this courtyard and the areas immediately outside of these courtyards were originally intended to be a place where all peoples, women and children, and even gentiles of the whole world could come to worship the one true God. Gentiles were not allowed in the inner parts of the temple, but they were still invited to come and worship the one true God in thes outer areas. However, the jewish leaders did not want the gentiles anywhere near them, they wanted to push themout and away. And so they did in one of the most vile ways you could think of, by desecrating the temple with consumerism.

There is also another disgusting thing about this scene. The temple sacrifice was meant to be a gift from the person whom is making the sacrifice. It was supposed to be given as a true sacrifice from their livlihood. It was to be a gift of blood that came from their own household. But instead jews would just show up at the temple with money (usually with caesars face on it) and they would exchange that idolatrous money for their “sacrifice” and then they would then present that sacrifice to the levites.

This economy was not what the Lord wanted, the sacrifice was supposed to come from best of your life and work, and that you should have had an attachment to it. To just show up, and hand one jew money, and another the sacrifice that you just purchased, was deplorable, and clearly not what God had intended. The buying of animals for sacrifice was actually allowed in Deut: 14:24-26. But by the time of this reading it was seriously being abused. So much so, that it had infact become a “tourist trap,” where some unscrupulous jews were taking advantage of the pilgrims. At the end of the day, these money changers, in an effort to provide an economy of goods for the sacrafice, were actually breaking God’s commandment about stealing. So Jesus, by driving out these evil doers (as God), was actually carrying out a just act of enforcing God’s law!

Next, I want to discuss the whip of cords. Jesus did not bring this weapon with Him, He improvised it on the spot, deliberately created it out of things he could find on site. To me this speaks of a person that is not full of rage, but who instead is witnessing a grave offense to the Lord, and through a stirring of righteous anger decides to take action to put an end to it. Futher, I think it is noteworthy to notice that a whip is a very different kind of weapon than a sword.  A sword gives you a distinct advantage in battle. It has a cutting edge, and gives you separation from your opponent in battle, and it provides defense against counter attack. A short whip on the other hand, gives you none of those advantages…, you can’t hide behind it. Using a whip requires close contact, and that makes you vulnerable. It requires courage by the weilder, and the advantage of righteous indignation, over the shame and fear of your opponent.

Lastly, I think that we need to discuss “anger”.  Anger is not a sin, as long as it remains righteous and not wrathful. St Thomas Aquinas speaks of all our human passions as having opposites, for example hope and fear, joy and sorrow, but he says that anger has no opposite. Anger is the righteous human response to injustice, whether real or percieved. It is righteous when the anger is in response to the offense of God’s Law or if it is in defense of the persecution of the weak, helpless, and afflicted. It is un-righteous, if it is used for a sinful selfish desire. And it is wrathful, if the response is disproportionally over-aggressive or vengful. I like to think that Jesus’ heart rate probably did not increase one beat throughout this whole episode, because His anger was completely proportionate, and righteous, and like I said he was simply enforcing the law. Jesus was simply responding to the disgrace that had risen up in the temple and was making it right.

And he is still doing that today. Although lately it seems that the evil one is winning, but judgement day is coming. Get yourself right with God, and pray that you will not feel the pain of His whip.

Oh lord, give me today the wisdom to see the things in my life that cause you pain, and the courage to remove them from my life before you come to do it to/for me. Amen.