Breaking Open How Your Pain Becomes the Path to Living AgainSample

Clarity, Not Certainty

There is a famous story about Jesus turning over tables in the temple (Matthew 21:12–13). Somehow we always miss the part about the chairs.

Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all the people who were buying and selling there. The temple had become a marketplace, and Jesus was none too happy about it.

Here’s what was happening. God’s people came to the temple to sacrifice animals. Over time, it became easier to buy and sell the animals right there in the temple courts. For this commerce to take place, there also had to be an exchange of money. Since people were traveling in from all over, they had different types of currency. The money changers became a part of the temple market as they converted the currency (of course with a bit of an upcharge, I might add!).

Jesus arrived at this temple court, and there was livestock everywhere, tables set up with ancient cash registers, and money changers converting Greek and Roman currency into Jewish coins. It was a mess.

It’s here that Scripture says Jesus “overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves." It is written," he said to them, "'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it 'a den of robbers.' " (Matthew 21:12–13).

Most people love this story. I think it is famous because we picture Jesus having a temper tantrum. And we like it. Jesus got angry and acted on it. It somehow justifies our temper tantrums and we feel good about making sure people know Jesus got angry. In our self- righteous anger, during particularly unbecoming outbursts, we can think, You know who else got angry? Jesus. Boom. Mic drop, people!

Jesus got angry for sure, but this story is about much more than Jesus’ temper. It is really the story of Jesus’ aching heart. His Father’s house had become filled with distracted people who forgot that the purpose of the temple was not financial gain. The temple was a place to connect with the heart of God. This happens through prayer, Jesus said, not through doves and coins.

So Jesus is famous for turning over tables.

But he also overturned seats.

Jesus “overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves” (v. 12, emphasis added).

Jesus made it so that those working in the temple couldn’t sit back down where they had been sitting. I believe Jesus was saying, “There is a seat you are sitting in that is not yours to sit in.”

The people in the temple court had become certain about how to connect with God. They had commercialized it, monetized it, and scheduled it. By turning over their seats, Jesus was inviting them, with a sense of urgent desperation, to leave behind certainty so they could see something more important more clearly.

Setting down certainty for clarity is a theme in the story of God’s people. In fact, Jesus was clearly pointing back deeper in the story when he turned over the tables and the seats.

Travel with me for a moment. We will get back to our seats in a minute. But let us travel from these words of Jesus back to the prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was standing at the gate of the temple. It was about six hundred years before Jesus, but he was right where Jesus would later be, some think it was even at the same time of the year as Jesus’ table-and-seat-turning, at the feast of Passover. Jeremiah was standing just outside the temple and, just like Jesus, saw a scene that didn’t match his conception of what should be happening there. He saw people who had forgotten. He saw a mess. Jeremiah asked on God’s behalf, “Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?” (Jeremiah 7:11).

When Jesus turned the seats over in the temple, he was quoting Jeremiah. They were both saying, “There may be a seat you are sitting in that is not yours to sit in. You have lost the plot.”

Just ’cause you’ve got a seat doesn’t mean it’s the right seat.

They turned seats over and called the distracted people of God to pray. That’s what the temple is about, Jesus and Jeremiah were saying.

The temple was all about the people of God meeting with the presence of God. The temple was God’s place in the middle of their city. It was God in their camp. God in their family. God in their hearts.

This whole religion thing is not so we can say, “Whew! We have a temple; we are safe.” It’s not a place to come and figure out everything about God. It is so we can say, “We have a God who will get us through the wilderness and never leave us.” It’s not about certainty.

But the nature of walking through hard things is that we forget this, and we start setting up chairs all over the place.

Jesus and Jeremiah were asking people to move seats, and they did so with emphasis (sometimes dramatic action is needed). They were reminding the people of God that their seats are ones that look desperately to God, not ones that figure out a system to barter their way through their spiritual lives.

We aren’t made to figure out God all the way, to have certainty about all God’s ways and thoughts. We couldn’t contain all of him even if we tried. And we can’t have the right coins to get the right doves to make everything right. We can’t know all about how God works, but we can know God. Clarity, not certainty.

Respond

Do you know God? Have you accepted His Son, Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

Describe your salvation experience.

If you are unsure, who in your circle of friends and family can help you know Jesus.

Prayer

Precious Jesus, thank you that I can know with certainty that You are my Savior. Amen.