Luke 19 45-48 Cleansing of the Temple dc.ca 11-19-04
About 30 years before the release of “The Passion of the Christ”, another production based on part of the life of Christ was in the movie theaters. The name of that movie was “Jesus Christ Superstar” and was roughly base on the gospel of Matthew. One of the parts that has stuck in my mind is what we know as the "cleansing of the temple". The movie has it depicted as a real action scene (as it is in Mt.) with a angry Jesus whipping people with the cord from his robe, turning over tables, money, birds flying everywhere, and people headed for the doors, getting out of the temple as fast as they can, quite a scene.
By contrast in today’s gospel reading of the cleansing of the temple from Lk., Jesus is not happy with what is going on but is more refined in his response. But the basic reason for Jesus’ actions in either case is preparation for the true teacher, Himself, to take his place as the authoritative teacher in the Temple.
For ourselves we have to look further in Luke’s gospel to find for a lesson for our normal day-to-day life. Once Jesus has made the statement about His authority and begins teaching in the temple area. He doesn’t just teach he also takes time for private prayer and solitude to be in communion with His Father, as we are told in the 21st chapter of Luke. Our lives are ordinarily not as dramatic as Jesus’ but the importance of taking time for prayer cannot be overemphasized.
If Jesus, the Son of God took time out for prayer, what does that tell us?