It’s Monday morning, and
Jesus and the disciples are on their way to the Temple to worship, and along
the way they pass a fig tree. Jesus, being hungry wants to find out if there is
any fruit upon the tree to eat satisfy his hunger. Yet, getting to the tree he
doesn’t find any fruit upon it, and with that he curses the tree, saying that
the tree will never bear fruit.
This picture is symbolic
of the picture of Israel having rejected their God, and not bearing fruit of
their own for the glory of God. We will see what happens to this tree tomorrow,
but until then we will leave the tree along the side of the road, and travel on
to the temple, where Jesus finds, not what he expected, but in fact a market
place that has moved within the courts of the temple.
READ MARK 11:14-16
It was there in the
temple that Jesus finds the temple to have been turned into a marketplace of
money changers, and sellers of animals for sacrifices. Having a special
agreement with the priests of the temple who were getting a portion of the
profits the merchants were selling their “wares” in the temple, which was not
where God had intended them to sell their merchandise. The temple was a place
of sanctity, prayer and worship, not a place of money making. In righteous anger,
Jesus overturns the tables of the merchants and chases the money changers out
of the temple proclaiming that God had intended for the temple to be a place of
worship and prayer, not a den of thieves.
What about our lives? The
Bible tells us that our bodies/lives are the temple of the Holy Spirit…do we
need a radical change in our lives to repurpose ourselves back to true worship
and prayer? Are we guilty of having filled our lives with meaningless things
that exist without purpose, or are we still dedicated like the temple had been
originally dedicated to the worship of the one true God?
I challenge you this week
to turn back to true worship if this is a need of change in your life.
Remember…Sunday is
coming!
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