The Passion & Purpose of Christ—(Spring) Cleaning in the House of Prayer

This message is from Palm Sunday. The day of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We refer to the last week of Jesus’ life on earth culminating in his arrest, torture, and crucifixion as the Passion Week or the "Passion of Christ". This is from the Latin word “passio,” which means "suffering." It was used only for the sufferings of Christ until the 1400s when the word began to be used for any strong emotion by both the French and the English. There are many ways that Jesus suffered in those last days and hours so that we might be not only forgiven our sins but adopted into the family of God.

I. His Passion: How do we see Jesus suffering in the last week of his ministry? Let me start our Holy Week meditations by mentioning five ways Jesus suffered and prayed that week—ways that perhaps should influence our observances as well.

1. Jesus Wept and Prayed on the Road (Luke 19:41-44)

 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.”

View across a cemetery to the Chapel of Tears,
the traditional site where Jesus wept over Jerusalem.

Jesus wept because for all the celebration of the crowds they and the scheming of the leaders they don’t get it. They didn’t recognize what was taking place—what it would cost to purchase their peace. They didn’t understand that it was their very resistance to the redemptive plan of God that would lead to the destruction of their city, not their salvation acting out over the following 40 years the principle that “he who loves his life loses it.” While this is called Palm Sunday because of their waving or paving with cutting palm fronds the path into the city, it might also be a day that if allowed to look back at their actions they might palm their forehead in dismay at what they missed. So much more than a V-8!

2. Jesus embraced his purpose and prayed for the Father’s glory (John 12:23-33)

In John 12 we can see Jesus, even before the climactic moments in the Garden of Gethsemane, embrace his divine purpose in his approaching suffering and death. In our humanity, it is normal to seek to avoid pain and suffering. Jesus knew this tendency as well but chose instead to stick to the plan of God for our good. His pain was indeed our gain by grace through costly love.

And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. [emphasis mine]

I should point out that Jesus’ being “lifted up from the earth” (v. 32) does not refer to our times of worship and praise, nor to his ascension into heaven. Verse 33 makes it clear that Jesus was describing how he would die—on the cross. Jesus used “lifted up” as a euphemism for the most horrible death by crucifixion, much like he used “asleep” for death.

3. Jesus Sweat and Prayed in the Garden (Matt. 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:39-46). Why would Jesus be under such strain as he prayed that he sweat “great drops of blood”? I can think of several reasons…

• Because of the ordeal—physical, mental, emotional, and relational—that he was about to face.
• Because he—who knew no sin—would have to become sin for us on the cross (2 Cor. 5:21).
• Because he had to yield his human will to the divine—what he had publicly stated earlier now he followed through on in private.

4. Jesus Suffered and Prayed on the Cross (Matt. 27-28; Mark 14:53-15:47; John 12:23-33). In our Bible study on Wednesday, we will prayerfully look more closely at what Jesus faced after he was arrested, the interrogation/trial, torture, and crucifixion.

5. Jesus obeyed, even unto death to set us free to obey unto life. (Phil. 2:8-11; Heb. 2:10-15) His glory was humble, one that was revealed in his coming down to us not in his exalting himself. He humbled himself and became like us so that we might be set free from slavery to the fear of death.

II. His Procession (Palm Sunday): The King of Glory Came in! (Mark 11:7-19)

Last week we read Psalm 24 about letting the King of glory come in. This week is Palm Sunday, the day we celebrate the King of Glory entering the city of Jerusalem. As we suggested last week, the way he came was prophesied in advance (e.g., Zech. 9:9), but it was still not what people expected—especially those who were wealthy and powerful. Let’s take up the narrative in Mark 11 and see Jesus the incarnate I AM, enter Jerusalem, and “get to work” in the Temple.

And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, 

“Hosanna! 

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! 

Hosanna in the highest!”  (Mark 11:7-11)

What did Jesus do once he had come into the city? Here are four things he did...

1. He answered their “Hosanna” prayer. There was more going on than they knew. Hosanna originally meant “save now” and came to be a term of praise for recognizing that God was the only one who could save. When they cried out “Hosanna” they didn’t fully know what it would take to answer their prayer for salvation (Luke 19:28-40; Mark 11:9-10). However, the Pharisees knew that they didn't like it and asked Jesus to rebuke his disciples for their worship (Luke 19:39-40; Psalm 8:3).

2. He looked around—He sees things are they really are. He doesn’t act rashly.

And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.

And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, 

he went out to Bethany with the twelve. (Mark 11:10-11)

Mark’s account makes it clear that the cleansing of the temple didn’t happen until the second day. I wonder what the Lord would think today if he were to come into our churches, businesses, and homes. The truth is that he knows all those places very well. Such knowledge should moderate the way we live and interact with others.

3. He “cursed” a fruitless fig tree— “may no one ever eat fruit from you again” (Mark 11:12-14). This wasn’t an example of Jesus getting “hangry,” but it was a highly symbolic moment that Jesus used later to teach a couple of important truths.

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

His imprecatory statement to the tree was not so much an active curse as it was a passive judgment that the deceptive fruitlessness of the tree would continue unchanged. While it was not the season for figs, the tree looked like it should have fruit (since it was in full leaf) but had none. The tree became an object lesson both against the hypocrisy of the temple (promising to have spiritual fruit when it did not) and for the power of prayer.

4. He cleansed the temple—Jesus didn’t ignore the problems facing those God-fearing people who came intending to worship but could not do so because of the defiling of the Court of the Gentiles. Jesus cleaned house (Mark 11:15-19; Luke 19:45-46; Matt. 21:12-13)!

And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple

and began to drive out those who sold

                              and those who bought in the temple,

and he overturned the tables of the money-changers

                       and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 

And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 

And he was teaching them and saying to them, 

“Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?

But you have made it a den of robbers.”

And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. 

And when evening came they went out of the city. (v. 15-19)

His actions were something that would have made the poor people happy while making the leaders angry. It would have cost the leaders in both their pocketbook and their prestige. The temple was supposed to be “a house of prayer for all peoples” according to Isaiah 56:7, but it wasn’t. It had become a bazaar of sacrificial animal vendors, oppressive banking of the money changers, and a lazy man’s shortcut into the city. They had made it a “den of robbers” as described in Jeremiah 7:11,

“Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.”

There was another time in Israel’s history when the temple needed to be cleansed. In the days of wicked King Ahaz, idols and refuse contaminated the temple. In 2 Chronicles 29, we find the narrative of young king Hezekiah’s first days in office. On his first day as king, at age 25, he ordered the Levites to clean out the Temple.

They gathered their brothers and consecrated themselves and went in as the king had commanded, by the words of the Lord, to cleanse the house of the Lord. The priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and they brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord.” (2 Chron. 29:15-16)

The place was such a mess that it took seven days just to clear a path from the gate to the vestibule and 16 days to finish the job. While the temple of Jesus’ day was not filled with garbage, it was filled with numerous distractions and desecrating attitudes and actions.

I would like to personalize what Jesus did to restore the temple to its intended function as the house of prayer. The temple of God is no longer an ornate white-stone building in Jerusalem. Nor is it a white wooden building in Longview. What is the temple of the Holy Spirit today? There are two passages in 1 Corinthians that speak to this issue.

The first is 1 Cor. 3:16-17, in the context of Paul encouraging unity in the church (the collective body of Christ) …

Do you not know that you are God's temple and

                                         that God's Spirit dwells in you? 

                 If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him.            

                                         For God's temple is holy,

                               and you are that temple.

The second passage is 1 Cor. 6:19-20, in the context of Paul addressing the need for purity in the body (the physical body of the believer)

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,

whom you have from God? 

          You are not your own, 

     for you were bought with a price. 

           So glorify God in your body.

I think that it is a valid application of this passage to ask if our heart—both as a unified congregation and as individual believers—is a God-honoring house of prayer for the nations or something less. 

Jesus may want to do some spiritual spring cleaning of our prayer closet! There are consequences for letting the King of glory come in. He will transform us! 

The story of the cleansing of the temple prompts me to ask three introspective questions of myself personally and also of us as a fellowship...

A) Where are we being controlled/manipulated?

Our culture conspires to convince us that we are better off without Christ and the church. Instead, our fears and failures are used to manipulate us—saying that if we will just buy this product, play this game, attend this event, drink this, and eat that, then we will be happy. It is always a lie to decide for ourselves what will fulfill my life apart from God. However, a consumer culture will always try to push real prayer out of our reach. By “real prayer” I mean a conscious awareness of, and intentional conversation with, the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—expressing not only our needs and concerns but our gratitude. Gratitude produces contentment. Contentment in a consumer culture is subversive! Tim Keller has said, “Prayer is awe, intimacy, struggle - yet the way to reality. There is nothing more important, or harder, or richer, or more life-altering.”

Years ago, the School Superintendent in the town where I lived got youth pastors together and said that the schools were going to start doing sports on Wednesday nights (the normal youth group night) and that they had better accept it and get out of the way. Not every municipality is as dismissive as that, but pastors and churches are consistently portrayed as irrelevant at best and often stereotyped as mean-spirited or uneducated. I can assure you that is an inaccurate portrayal. All the great universities of history were founded as an arm of the church. When I was in college I went on a short-term mission to what was then the USSR. The communists had tried to brainwash their people to believe that Christians were all old, uneducated, weak, unfriendly, and even mentally unbalanced. Not so different from the efforts of our own media today. We sought to dispel this great media myth through the unique gifting of each member of our team—whether intellectually astute and engaged, socially skilled and winsome, young and strong, lighthearted and full of joy, patiently able to explain our beliefs, etc. Today, we still need to unplug our lives from the controlling narrative of a secular culture so that we can experience the adventure of a prayerful relationship with God and fellow believers!

B) Where are we being contaminated by what we allow to crowd out our prayer time?

Modern Garbage that needed to
be cleaned from Hezekiah's Pool.

What we watch and listen to does make a difference in what is going on in our hearts and minds. What do I do first? What do I do last? Whose voice fills my mind and directs my heart? Here are a few suggestions, while not necessarily bad things that can become all-consuming or at least convenient substitutes for spending time in prayer: Sports, Social media, Snacks, Selfies (which may belong to all the previous categories), Sleep, etc.

If as you read this you know that one or more of these, or something else, is crowding out prayer in your life then take this time to confess it to the Lord in openness and honesty, ask for forgiveness, and then repent by changing the pattern and spend time with the Lord.

C) How are we being conditioned to respond? Jesus’ disciples consistently strove to gain the honor of being the greatest, Jesus taught them that greatness was in humble service—doing what no one else wanted to do. Do we seek to gain honor and glory for ourselves or trust that God has that covered? Do we defend ourselves, demanding the respect and rights we think we are owed, or yield our rights for the good of others less resourced than ourselves?

Jesus entered the temple and drove out the robbers. Eventually, he was led outside the city to die—so that we might have a part in a city not made with hands. The author of Hebrews urges his readers to go outside the city to Christ! (Heb. 13:12-14)

So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.

Let me conclude this discussion of a renewed passion for prayer with a link to Miss Clara’s classic “Raise them up Lord” prayer from the movie War Room (2015)

III) Some Other Things Jesus Did That Week…

Here is a list of a few of the other things that Jesus did in that final week leading up to his death. I am presenting this list with scriptural references early in the week so that you will be able to use these passages devotionally this week as we approach Good Friday and Resurrection Day.

He healed the blind and lame (Matt. 21:14). In those days, the temple functioned as it was intended. "And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them." It appears that the people didn't just cry "Hosanna" on the way into Jerusalem on the first day, but also after Jesus did his cleansing work and began healing in the temple precinct (Matt. 21:14-17).

He humbled himself and washed their feet over Peter’s objection (John 13). We must allow Jesus to cleanse us from the contamination of sin if we are to have any part with him. It is not comfortable and will certainly involve the renouncing of our own pride.

He taught both the disciples and the people (John 14-16; Matt. 21-25). These two great sections of Jesus' teaching emphasize different things. In John 14-16 Jesus taught important truths about himself and the Holy Spirit; while in Matthew 21-25 he taught about discipleship and being ready for judgment/the end times. Both are powerful sections to read through this week.

He instituted the Lord’s Supper or Communion (Luke 22:14-23; Mark 14:22-25; Matt. 26:26-29) building from the Passover meal he instituted a new way of remembering God’s greatest act of deliverance of his people and his continued presence with us. It is no longer the Passover Seder but the Lord’s Supper.

He prayed for his followers then and now (John 17; Luke 22:31-32, 39-46)

This prayer concern for his followers is seen both in his prayer for them as individuals such as Simon Peter,

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32)

and in his repeated instruction for them to be praying so that they might not enter into temptation even while doing the same thing himself.

And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.” (Luke 22:39-46)

But of course, the most comprehensive prayer that Jesus prayed in those days is found in John 17 and is referred to as his “High Priestly prayer”.

He protected his followers from arrest (John 18:4-11) in fulfillment of what he had prayed in John 17. He said take me and let these others go.

He refused to defend himself, demonstrating the kingdom value, “Blessed are the meek” which he lived out to the end (John 18-19). 

He died for their sins instead of excluding them for their failures (John 19:27-37).

Hopefully, these passages will serve to encourage and challenge us, especially this week, as we focus on our precious Savior!