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Holy Monday: Cleansing of the Temple

 


Holy Monday is the day we celebrate when our Lord Jesus cleansed the temple, “The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” (John 2:13-16). Most pastors shirk from mentioning the cleansing of the temple, fearing that potential converts may not be keen on Christ wielding a whip. What is missed in this very cathartic moment for us Christians is that Jesus is preparing the temple for His sacrifice, its symbolic of us who are temples of God, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” (1 Corinthians 3:16), that Christ has to drive out the Mammon, love of money: greed, to then place himself in its place, “No one is able to serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and he will love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and he will despise the other. You are not able to serve God and mammon (god of money).” (Matthew 6:24). To be clear money is not root of all evil, its the love of money that is, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows,” (1 Timothy 6:10, KJV). This greed, like what we are seeing in world where babies, children, and innocents rot under the sun, and people lose their homes because people want the land and use force: that is the love of money, a.k.a. greed; when you are willing to harm others and do dishonest and despicable things to obtain wealth. 


Holy Monday is about breaking the ‘un-holy’ money altars in our souls and hearts. We have to let Jesus use a whip and drive it out of our hearts. I find it intriguing that Holy Monday commemorates Jesus wielding a whip, but then on Good Friday the Romans wield a whip on His flesh, “Then Pilate had Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip.” (John 19:1). Is there message there? The whipping of money changers and then letting Himself be whipped for us? I think there is a message, that with one whip Jesus was symbolically clearing the Temple of the devil, A.K.A. mammon, who invented money (Ezekiel 28:15-16), but then Jesus let his body be whipped, “broken for us.” (1 Corinthians 11:14) to break the power of the devil which was death (Hebrews 2:14); Jesus now has the keys of death and hades (Revelation 1:18). Its a major revelation! Jesus removes the Mammon’s altars of trade in the Second Temple, then He allowed himself to be whipped by Romans to remove the devil’s power over us via sin and death! Jesus was driving home the point he is removing the devil from God’s real temple.. us! For it says anyone who refused Jesus is a temple of the devil, “You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.,” (Ephesians 2:2, NLT), and “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8). So Holy Monday is major part of Holy Week, it draws our attention to Jesus removing the devil’s trade in a symbolic way in Second Temple and then later spiritually when He is tortured and dies on the cross and rises from the dead to remove the trade of the devil in human temples. Amen. 


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