The Lord in His Temple
CHAPTER 19
THE SPRING-TIME of the year came, when the people from all parts of the land went up to Jerusalem to attend the great feast of the Passover.
You remember that this feast was held to keep in mind how more than a thousand years before God had led the Israelite people out of Egypt, where they had been slaves. It was called the feast of the Passover because on the night of their going-out the angel of death had "passed over" the houses of the Israelites when he brought death to the Egyptian homes. On that night, too, they went out of Egypt in such haste that the women did not have time to wait for the bread to rise before baking it, and all the bread eaten at that time was "unleavened bread," or bread made without yeast.
To keep in mind that great day, the day when Israel became a nation, ruling itself, in the spring of every year all the people gathered in Jerusalem, and for one week ate unleavened bread, that is, bread made without yeast. Great services were held in the Temple on every day of this feast; and on one evening a special dinner of a roasted lamb was eaten by everybody, to keep in mind the last meal which the Israelites ate in the land of Egypt, with their hats on their heads and their cloaks on their shoulders and their shoes on their feet, all ready to march away.
Jesus and the little company of his disciples or followers went up to Jerusalem, walking, as many times before, down the Jordan valley to Jericho, and then climbing the hills to the holy city. For many years Jesus had been coming to the feast of the Passover; but never before had he come as he came now, in the power of the Spirit, as the Son of God.
Around the House of God was a great open court, called the Court of the Gentiles, where foreign people who were not Jews came to pray; since none but Jews or Israelites could enter the inner courts. But the Jews held all Gentiles or foreign people in contempt. They did not look upon the part of the Temple buildings where foreigners prayed as holy; and they had turned this court, the Court of the Gentiles, into a market place. Here Jesus found everywhere sheep and oxen brought there for sale; cages full of doves, which were sold to the poorer people for offerings upon the altar; counters where sat men changing the money of people from other lands into the coins of Judea. There was nothing of the quiet and peace which should be in a place of prayer; all was noise and confusion; the lowing of oxen, the voices of men buying and selling, the jingling of silver on the tables.
These sights and sounds stirred the heart of Jesus. He felt that such work as went on around him was unfit and was wicked in a place set apart for the worship of God. He picked up a piece of rope from the floor and untwisted its cords until it seemed like a whip. Then standing before the buyers and the sellers, he called upon them to stop their trading. They looked up amazed at this stranger whose face glowed with power as though he were a king.
Alone, without help from anyone, he drove all these people out of the court. He bade them lead away the sheep and the oxen; he commanded those who sold the doves to carry out their cages; he overturned the tables of the money-changers and sent their silver rolling upon the floor.
