The first act our Savior performed during Easter week was the cleansing of the temple, so we know it was profoundly important. How could the Savior teach each day if His Father’s House was desecrated?
We think there are more lessons to be learned from this event than we have yet learned. This is perhaps the most shocking, out-of-character action done by Christ in His mortal ministry – He obviously wanted to get our attention!! Yet, we are sure Jesus was completely composed. It says in John that He took time to make “a scourge of small cords,” and then, he drove them all out! He overturned tables, scattered the animals, and drove out the merchants. We find it interesting that of the oxen, sheep, and doves He found in the temple, He only drove out the oxen and sheep (John 2:15). Maybe the doves were different in nature and meant something else, such as when a dove appeared as the sign of the Holy Spirit at Jesus’s baptism. He said on this occasion at the temple, “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”
And I also love reflecting on what Christ did immediately after the temple was cleansed – He brought the children and the outcasts and the weak and infirm to Him to be healed. THAT is what He wants us to do with the holiness He gives to us through His amazing grace – bless the lives of others, especially “the least of these.”
So, today, make a change in your life! You want to feel power in your life, feel the Holy Spirit, then go serve someone! Make an act of kindness; find someone who needs cheering up, or find someone who could use a compliment or some service. Let us be instruments in His hands!
