Reading the Gospels Together The Cleansing of the Temple – Part 1 We have noted about how the Cleansing of the Temple is closely connected with the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the synoptic gospels. We have also noticed how John has separated these two events by placing the story of the Cleansing of the Temple near the beginning of his gospel. In due time, we will need to ask why each of these writers have ordered their story in the way they did. In this section we will need to consider Mark 11:12-25; Matthew 21:12-22; Luke 19:45-48; and John 2:13-25. We have noted how Mark tells the story of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry in such a way that it seems to be meant more for the followers of Jesus than anyone else – the event may have gone unnoticed by almost everyone else. Mark has also told his readers that Jesus retreated to Bethany after having surveyed the Temple upon his entry into the city. It is now the next day and Jesus proceeds back down the Mount of Olives and into the city once again. But before he does that Mark tells a peculiar story of Jesus looking for figs on a fig tree even though it is the wrong season for figs to bear. And when Jesus finds no figs he proceeds to curse the tree. It is at this point that Mark tells the story of the cleansing. Knowing something about the structure of the Temple area is important to Mark’s story. The Temple area was a series of courts surrounding the actual structure in which the inmost room was the Holy of Holies where no one entered except the high priest and he entered only once each year on the Day of Atonement. In the outermost court even Gentiles were welcome. Next came the court of Jewish women who could proceed one step closer than the Gentiles but no more. Then came the court of Jewish men and finally the Temple structure itself where only priests and Levites could enter. The very design of the structure hindered approaching God. And the sacrificial system that had built up over time also hindered such an approach. It was this barrier that Jesus came to destroy more than anything else. Jesus’ words are instructional in understanding that. Jesus quotes two OT passages, one from Isaiah and the other from Jeremiah. Jesus’ complaint is that the religious leaders have destroyed the sense of the Temple being a house of prayer for all nations and turned it instead into the hideout of robbers. So once again Jesus engages in a symbolic act attacking the very structure of the religious leaders. This symbolic event does not go unnoticed as Mark tells his readers that the religious leaders seek to kill Jesus. But they cannot because of the crowds who are spellbound at Jesus’ teaching. In many ways the cleansing of the Temple is, for Mark, the straw that broke the camel’s back and is the event the precipitates the death of Jesus. It is the climatic event in a long chain of events leading to the death of the Messiah. After a day of teaching following his symbolic action Jesus and his disciples again leave the city. And the next day as they pass the fig tree the disciples notice that it has withered and died. Mark has craftily surrounded the cleansing of the Temple with another symbolic action on the part of Jesus – the cursing of the fig tree. As the fig tree will no longer bear fruit, the religious system of the Temple is no longer useful as a means of God’s grace – the religious leaders have perverted it and there is no other alternative than to destroy it. The cursing of the fig tree is, for Mark, a powerful metaphor of the needed destruction of the Temple system in Jerusalem. The story of the cursing of the fig tree is such a difficult and strange story so perhaps it is fair to say that Mark did not mean it to be understood literally but used it figuratively. It works well as a metaphor and not so well as an actual event. And so Mark concludes these two events with his readers pondering the meaning of both of them. What does it mean that Jesus enters Jerusalem as King Jesus and what does it mean that the Temple has been overthrown? Mark will proceed to unveil that meaning in what follows.