Bible Cliches

I was reading the story of Jesus cleansing the temple of the money-changers, in preparation for His passion week, and for some reason was struck by how this story is misused.

If you read the question asked Him by the temple personnel, that is the kernel of the story. "What right do you have to do this?" This was a blatantly dishonest question, asked by a cabal of corrupt and dishonest men who profited from the price-gouging rates they charged the common people for exchanging regular money for their bogus temple money. So Christ put them back on their heels by demanding they say who they thought John the Baptist was. 

The point is, this story is not about the "rightness of anger." It is about the authority of Jesus of Nazareth. He was God's Son, and this was His Father's sanctified house. He had every right to march in and run off all these crooks. Like Odysseus coming home and kicking all the ruffians out of his home, like Frodo and his friends scouring the Shire at the end of their adventures, Christ did what he did because it was His Father's place, and he was His Father's Son.

The story has nothing to do with it being okay to get mad at people. We wouldn't have had the right to drive out the money-changers with a whip, because we aren't the Son of God. The chief priests and scribes worked for Jesus of Nazareth, though they absolutely refused to recognize His authority over them. The story is also a foreshadowing of Christ's glorious return. First the crucifixion, then the going-away to a far country to receive a kingship, then a return to rebuild and restore the Temple.

And Christ acted out of zeal for His Father's glory, not out of rage. 

Too many Christians have used this story as a justification for their bad tempers. Even if we preachers place a right distinction on godly anger versus fleshly anger, "anger" still isn't what the story is about. Christ's emotion at that moment is a secondary issue; He could easily have acted with silent determination. The temple exchange-area was a criminal enterprise that had been crying out for purging a long time. The Messiah did it, because He was the Messiah. It is Christ making one more declaration of His true identity, before Good Friday came.