Listen

It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. He said to the dove sellers, “Get these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it is written, Passion for your house consumes me.

John 2:13-17

Think

Jesus expresses his love for God, his worship with his life, by clearing the temple of things that distract from worshiping God. The sights, the sounds, the smells, and the commerce worked together to attack Jesus’ sensibilities. If all of this was set up at the very entrance to the place of worship, were the people free to worship? How could they move into true worship if they began their journey haggling in the marketplace? Could they focus on the holiness of God and be centered for worship?

God’s heavenly ways and humanity’s earthly ways often collide. We sometimes get imbalanced and go off on faddish spiritual tangents, like a marketplace in the temple, leaving behind what God truly wants from us. How are you preparing to worship God? What distractions do you need to clear away? How will you reorganize your life so that heaven and earth may meet in you and your worship?

David Haun

Pray

God of peace and justice, you give an example of gracious strength in Jesus; nurture his example in me. Help me to recognize the ways of worship that are pleasing to you and not just pleasing to me. Come, Holy Spirit, to center me, focus me, and order all of my life as worship. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

Go

Go, led by the Holy Spirit, making way for God to be first with you always and your neighbor to be second, answering God’s saving love with your life, meeting the miracle of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ with the gift of your honor-filled worship, both day and night, wherever you are, forever. Amen.