posted 29 March, 2010

As we prepare to celebrate Easter, we want to turn our focus towards the days that led up to Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. We will post a daily reading this week. Read the scripture and the study help below, take some personal notes, pray through and meditate on what you have read, and comment below so we can share with others in our River Church family.

Luke 19:45–48
Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, saying to them, “It is written, ‘AND MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER,’ but you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.” And He was teaching daily in the temple; but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, and they could not find 1anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said. [NASB]

Today’s reading immediately follows a very significant prophecy made by Jesus.  As He approached Jerusalem on Palm Sunday He wept over it because He knew that those living in its quarters were spiritually blind and that this blindness would eventually result in the destruction of the city and the leveling of the Temple (Luke 19:41-44).  We know from historians that the Romans lay siege to Jerusalem in 70 AD and destroyed the Temple.  Ironically, the next detail Luke gives us about Jesus’ last few days takes place in the outer courts of that very temple.

We must keep in mind just how significant the temple was to the Jewish people and to Jesus Himself.  The temple was their most sacred sight and symbolized the dwelling place of God.  It was the spiritual center of their nation and was a representation of all that they cherished concerning their faith and heritage. What is fascinating to ponder is the fact that Scripture reveals this about Jesus, “God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in him” (Colossians 1:19). Throughout the New Testament we see a comprehensive case for the divinity of Christ.  So, before us is a scene of Jesus, the purest expression of God’s presence and dwelling with man that the world has ever seen, and an extravagant building that could only function as a symbol of that holy presence.  But the intensity of this passage is unavoidable because, when God made a personal visit to His own “house”, He found it out of order and filled with people who were using it for self-serving purposes. When Jesus drove these people out He quoted verses from the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, “It is written, ‘and My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a robbers’ den” (Luke 19:46; Isaiah 56:7; Jeremiah 7:11).  By making such a statement and acting with the authority that He did, Jesus was giving them yet another indicator that He was the divine King of Israel or in other words, the King of that house.

We are steadily moving toward Resurrection Sunday, a time when the church gathers together to worship and confess our belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  During His ministry Jesus slowly began to unfold the truth that His body was the real temple of God, and now we as Christ-followers are called the Body of Christ (see John 2:19-22 and 1 Corinthians 3:16-17).  It is the Church, not a beautiful building, but the followers of the living Christ that make up His house.  From this passage it seems very clear what kind of house He wants us to be…“A HOUSE OF PRAYER”.  Are we allowing the Holy Spirit to so live in us that we can honestly say that our lives, even our bodies, are looking more and more like houses of prayer and less and less like places where selfish desires are the preoccupation. May we each allow Him to “turn over” the things in our lives that hinder us from being the dwelling place He created us to be.

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