Free the Animals
“Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”
Matthew 21:12-13
A co-worker showed me the “Holy Week” calendar her daughter got from school. (I was glad to find out that at least one school still taught about Jesus!)
What caught my eye was “Holy Monday,” the day Jesus “set the sacrificial animals free and cleansed the temple.”
I’ve always looked at this passage in the sense that the ones who were selling the animals shouldn’t do it in the temple, and I applied this to church.
Don’t sell stuff in the church.
Church should be a “House of prayer.”
The merchants operated kind of a “convenience store.” I can imagine a commercial for their services: “You have a long journey to the temple. It’s hot, the babies are crying and your wife is complaining. You don’t have time to keep up with your sacrificial animals. Leave that to us! We offer same day, in temple delivery.”
The idea that Jesus was setting the sacrificial animals free… This puts me in mind of Jesus’ once and for all sacrifice.
This is explained in Hebrews 10. Take a moment and read the whole chapter, but here’s a summary:
“And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God,”
Hebrews 10:11-12
Jesus took our place. He became sin for us.
So, the sacrificial animals, the ones being offered in place of us, were no longer needed.
He set them free!
Also, by faith in Jesus, we can be set free.
“Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
John 8:36
Much like the sacrificial animals being let out of their cages, let us enjoy our freedom from sin today!
