Transcript
Speaker: The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production. Christianity has become known for judgy people, strange words, ancient stories, confusing rules, and a members -only mindset. This is why I stayed away from the church for so long, but it's not supposed to be that way. I'm Jill Devine, a former radio personality with three tattoos, a love for a good tequila, and who's never read the entire Bible.
Speaker: Yet, here I am hosting a podcast about faith. The Normal Goes a Long Way podcast is your home for real conversations with real people using real language about how faith and real life intersect. Welcome to the conversation. Welcome to this special edition of Holy Week, Reflection and Prayer. I'm your host, Jill Devine, and we are going to continue with
Speaker: What was happening with Jesus and those around him in this reflection and prayer for today from Laura Fleetwood? It's Monday morning and Jesus has returned with his disciples to Jerusalem. Yesterday he rode into town and today he's back to arrive at the temple.
Speaker: On this day, we see a different side of Jesus. We see a side of Jesus that was righteously angry at what people had turned God's house into. The scene before us is one of commotion and chaos in the temple courts.
Speaker: There are people selling birds and animals to be sacrificed because they knew the people were coming and they knew they would want these sacrifices to be able to offer to God.
Speaker: And when Jesus comes up and he sees the money changers and he sees that people were being cheated and people who had no money were being charged far more than they should have for these sacrifices that they were offering out of love, he becomes enraged. And maybe for you, that is a scary thing to think of Jesus as angry.
Speaker: Because so much of what he taught was about love and about mercy and about acceptance. Jesus had every single motion that a human being could have, including anger.
Speaker: When he sees his beloved people who he is about to die for being cheated, being taken advantage of, he responds accordingly. He turns over the tables on these people who are cheating those that are coming to make sacrifices of love and repentance. He is angry.
Speaker: because this is not what God intended. He's angry perhaps because he knows how much he is getting ready to suffer for these very people who are turning his father's house into a charade, into a sham, into a place of hurt and not healing. And so Jesus shows us what matters to him.
Speaker: What matters to him are the poor. What matters to him are the people who are coming for hope. The people that are coming for forgiveness.
Speaker: And he cannot stand the sin and the selfishness and the greed of those who would take advantage of such people. This shouldn't surprise us about Jesus for it's what he's been teaching all along. Here we get a glimpse of his love for people.
Speaker: in a little bit different slant. He loves them so much. His heart is enraged that they would be treated so poorly, especially in his father's house, his father, who is holy. And yet there is unholiness taking place in the midst of the people that he loves.
Speaker: Dear heavenly father, if we're honest with ourselves, we are often those money changers who Jesus was so angry with. We often act out of greed. We often act out of selfishness. We often put ourselves before the people that God wants us to love and serve.
Speaker: It hurts us to think that Jesus might be angry if he could see some of the ways that we act and some of the things that we do and some of the things that we say. And yet we know that as he continued his journey to the cross, he was also walking in love for those very money changers whose tables he turned over.
Speaker: He did not like what they were doing, but he loved them because his father loves them, because they were made in God's image, just as we are. And so even in his anger, even at his outward display of emotion, of anger towards what these people were doing, he still loved them enough to continue his journey to the cross.
Speaker: Amen.
