St. Luke 19:45--46
Jesus went into the temple and proceeded to drive out the men who were
selling things there. He said to them, "It is written, 'My house should
be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.'"
Beck
In the name of our patient King, Jesus the Christ, amen.
The collect for Palm Sunday focuses on Jesus' patience in enduring
suffering and even death for our salvation. Yet in this passage, which
takes place the day after Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, we see
that He is not exercising much patience. He is furious and goes about
cleansing the temple. (For a more detailed account see St. Mark 11:15ff).
It is certainly proper that He should cleanse the temple since the week
from Palm Sunday to Good Friday is the fulfillment of the passover. In
the passover the house was cleansed of all yeast. This is because yeast
is a symbol of sin. The house was to be cleansed in preparation for the
feast. So now Jesus was cleansing the Temple from sinful practices.
Jesus cleansed the temple showing a definite lack of patience, yet when
it came to suffering and dying for us, "He opened not His mouth." There
is a lesson in this for us. We should be willing to endure much for the
sake of the Gospel, but we should show a definite lack of patience with
blatant falsehood.
But how often do we tolerate the views of the world which are totally
opposed to Christ? How easily do we get caught up in the idea that, "It
isn't so bad, every one does it," or "Everyone has a right to their
opinion." It isn't true. There is objective truth. We cannot say that
what is wrong for one person may be right for another. It simply doesn't
work that way.
On the other hand we often have a lack of patience for those who are
moving in the right direction when it comes to faith. We don't want to
inconvenience ourselves for the sake of someone else's salvation. We
don't want to suffer possible ridicule, so we don't speak. We don't want
to spend the time, so we don't explain. We look to ourselves rather than
to others.
But this is totally backwards. We are to be patient with others who are
new to the faith, or weak in faith. We are to be impatient with
falsehood. Thankfully our Savior got it right. He was patient where He
should have been, and impatient where He needed to be. He did this for
us. His patience and impatience are our patience and impatience as far
as God is concerned. In that fact lies the power for us to be patient
where we need to be, and impatient where we should be.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, we know that we do not act in patience when we should,
and that we also tolerate many things that we shouldn't. Please forgive
us this sin for the sake of our Savior Jesus. Send Your Holy Spirit upon
us so that we may act the way our Savior did. Help us to show great
patience to Your lambs and sheep, and not to tolerate those things that
destroy faith. In Jesus' name, amen.