Life on the Pasture

With the celebration of Palm Sunday yesterday, our Holy Week observance has begun. On Monday of the original Holy Week, Jesus cleared out the temple. According to Mark’s account, “on reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as He taught them, He said, ‘Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” (Mark 11:15–17, NIV)

Jesus didn’t get into a big legal discourse with those in charge. He simply took ownership of His Father’s House. It would be like you coming home from vacation and finding that someone else had moved in and taken over. You wouldn’t be happy. Jesus wasn’t happy.

And note what He singles out: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

Which brings us to a personal question: If, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19, our bodies are “temples of the Holy Spirit,” is there anything that has cluttered up our coming to the Lord in prayer?

There is always the challenge of taking time to pray without distractions. We may find ourselves tired at the end of the day, simply going through the Lord’s Prayer and sighing, “Lord, you know what’s on my heart,” and then falling asleep. Falling asleep with our last thought being one of talking with our Lord in prayer is indeed a comforting way to fall asleep. Yet there is also great comfort in learning to pray in all circumstances, of following those ACTS of prayer throughout the day – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.

The point of clearing our temple and restoring it to a place of prayer is not to make Christianity a matter of following religious disciplines for the sake of following rules. Rather, it’s all about improving our communication with the One who came that we might be in that loving, living personal relationship with Him. And any healthy relationship involves quality time talking together not because we have to, but because we want to.

– Pastor Schmidt

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash