Five Days in Jerusalem: Matthew 21:12-17 - Palm Sunday

Colonel Harland Sanders was 62 when he began franchising his secret recipe “Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Twelve years later, he sold his fast-food empire to investors, but retained a great deal of control over the company. He would travel over 200,000 miles a year, well into his eighties, conducting surprise inspections of the restaurants bearing his name. If the quality of the food or service fell short of his high standards, he would go into a profanity-laden fit, often throwing the food on the floor in front of stunned employees and customers.

We see in today’s Gospel a very similar reaction from Jesus when he enters the temple in Jerusalem, minus the profanity. He goes on a rampage, overturning tables, hurling chairs, and driving out the money changers and all the people selling sacrificial doves. “You’ve made my house a den of robbers,” he shouts. 

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Jesus acts like he owns the place—which, in fact he does. Jerusalem is the City of God. The temple is God’s dwelling place. This makes you wonder: what would Jesus do if he came to Leechburg? What would he do if he came to our church? What would he do if he came to your home? And what would we do in response?

I believe Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem gives us some insight into this. He quickly goes to the people who need him most, namely the sick, the poor, and the lost. I take great comfort in this, considering all the people on our prayer list, and all the hurting and desperate people around us. I’m not surprised that the children are drawn to him. I’m sure we and others would be drawn to him all the same. After all, we have been waiting for him.

But would Jesus be pleased by how we are living our lives and stewarding the gifts which he has entrusted us?

One of the biggest mistakes we can make here at the beginning of Holy Week is to distance ourselves from the people who are responsible for crucifying Jesus. I know that none of you are as violent or cruel as they were, but we are all sinners just as much as they are. Sin is in the violence done to Jesus. As a sinner, you are every bit as guilty of Jesus’s blood as the Roman soldiers, the corrupt religious leaders, Judas Iscariot, and Pontius Pilate. And yet, as Jesus cries out from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing,” you are every bit as forgiven as they are. If you have any doubts, Jesus welcomes you to his table and offers you his body and blood, just as he did for Judas at the Last Supper.

Knowing how much he loves us, I’m okay with him turning over the tables we set for ourselves where the neighbor isn’t welcome. I need love that’s soft and tender, but also love that’s tough and firm. And just like he takes away my sin, I want him to take down and clear away the stuff I hold onto that stands in his way and pulls me into sin.

The profiteering happening within the temple establishment was only half the reason why Jesus overturned the money changers’ tables and the chairs of the people selling doves. The fundamental reason things existed because this was the proper way for the people to worship God. Coins containing images of emperors who call themselves God have no place in God’s temple. People offered sacrifices to atone for sin. But when Jesus came to the temple, he was announcing the dawn of a new era in salvation history.

I wonder if one of the reasons why churches like ours are struggling is because we hold too tightly to the old, familiar ways instead of letting things go so that Jesus can do a new thing among us. There are so many hurting people who don’t know Jesus, that we shouldn’t be seeing our numbers declining. If Jesus told us, in plain detail, what we must do to increase our faith while at the same time growing our church, can we honestly say that we would happily go along with the ways he would change us and challenge us? You cannot take up your cross and follow Jesus without letting go of comfort, security, and control. 

We need that tough love from Jesus, just as much as we need his healing love and his deliverance from sin and death. We need his tough love to save us from ourselves. 

But in these five days in Jerusalem, between when he enters in triumph on a donkey, and when he leaves in humiliation bearing a cross and wearing a crown of thorns, God breaks the power of sin and death.

Jesus takes it all upon himself at the cross: your sin and mine against him and the neighbor; the war and bloodshed in Ukraine, the Nashville Christian school shooting, the grief, sickness, and worry afflicting you and your loved ones, the soul-crushing burden of poverty, and the uncertain future we face as a church. 

Jesus suffered it all. Jesus forgave it all. And Jesus conquered it all. 

So come, Lord Jesus, and let your peace and justice reign on earth. Come, Lord Jesus, and let your salvation touch every broken spirit. Come, Lord Jesus, into our church; awaken us from our sleep, rouse us from complacency, knock us down, if you must, to build us anew, lest your Gospel fall silent, and your love fade from our hearts. Come, Lord Jesus, and be risen in us. Make us more like you. Break our hard hearts so that we will love you as fully and completely as you love us.  

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:El_Greco_Christ_Driving_the_Money_Changers_from_the_Temple.jpg