Mar. 24: Palm Sunday

By Arden Ratcliff

MATTHEW 21:12-17

12Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13He said to them, “It is written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’;


          but you are making it a den of robbers.” 


14The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. 15But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry 16and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, 
    

 ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies


          you have prepared praise for yourself‘?”


17He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

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Today is Palm Sunday.  We will process into the sanctuary, waving branches and shouting “Hosanna!”  We will celebrate how Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey and was welcomed like a king.  How the people lined the streets and laid down their cloaks so his feet (and his donkey’s hooves) never touched the ground.

What we probably won’t talk about is what Jesus did immediately after that.  We won’t talk about the story that comes right after this one in the Bible.  We won’t talk about how Jesus rode into the great city with the crowds cheering him on, and then immediately goes into the temple and throws out the money changers.

When I first realized that this was the story that came next, I was really surprised.  Wait, you mean Jesus didn’t just arrive in Jerusalem, practically crowd-surfing, and just go home and bask in the glory of his reception party?  You’re telling me that he immediately went out and started causing trouble?

Often the switch from the high of Palm Sunday to the low of Good Friday seems like a quick one.  How did the cheers of “hosanna” so quickly become the jeers of “crucify”?  Part of the problem is that we overlook the rest of Jesus’ actions on Palm Sunday.  Already, even on the day when he was welcomed so gladly into the city, the seeds of his crucifixion are planted. 

Yes, Palm Sunday is a day of celebration.  But it’s also a day when we should remember the cleansing of the temple.  What money changers have we allowed to set up shop in our sacred spaces?  What vendors have we permitted to set up shop in our temples? 

As we joyfully welcome Jesus into Jerusalem today, let us also work to cleanse our own personal temples, so that come Easter they might be a proper dwelling place for the risen Christ.