Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”
John 2:17
When we think of Jesus, we often think of the loving, gentle, and compassionate Jesus. That is why today's passage is so unusual for us in that we see Jesus smashing on some people. He came into the Temple of God and found people buying and selling and doing business. He got mad, made a whip of chords, chased people out and threw their money on the ground. What!?
It makes perfect sense. As we have said before, Jesus was all about relationships! The very temple of God was built as a place to work on a relationship with God and others. The problem was not the money being exchanged in the temple. The other accounts of the Gospels (Matthew 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46) give a clear picture that there was scandalous activity going on in with the money. Jesus called it a "Den of Thieves". There can be no relationships built with thievery going on. Robbery is an action of violence that hurts and wounds others. And that disgusted Jesus and made him angry. His anger was born out of love for God and for God's people.
This is such a powerful point! It is not wrong to be angry! The Bible says, "Be angry and do not sin" (Ephesians 4:26-27) If anger is used properly, it can be a tool of great power. Anger is like gasoline. If you pour it on top of the car, the car will go Boom. If you put it in the tank, the car will go Vroom! (Cheesy--but true!)
Life is about relationships. Instead of getting angry with each other and hurting each other with our words and actions because we think we are right, we should be angry at the sin in our own lives. We are the temple of God. We need to use the anger that God has given us to drive out everything and anything that hinders our love for God and others. That is when we will experience the Power of the Holy Spirit moving mightily in our lives and find ourselves living a life of love.
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