By the Rev. Howard Bess, Consortimum News, April 23, 2011
Editor’s Note: Because Western civilization embraced Christianity as the ruling religion, the teachings of Jesus lost much of their insurrectionist, pacifistic and egalitarian origins. In effect, Christianity was bent to the interests of kings, politicians, generals and the rich.
Similarly, the story of Jesus’s fateful last week in Jerusalem has been reshaped to minimize perhaps its central event, his overturning of the money tables at the temple, a direct challenge to the merging of religious and political power of his day, as the Rev. Howard Bess recounts in this guest essay:
Palm Sunday celebrates the entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. Maunday Thursday is a solemn replay of his last meal with his disciples. Good Friday takes us through his mock trial and his death of horror on a Roman Cross. Easter is the Christians’ triumphant celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead.
But there is a missing piece. The incident that gives sense to the week’s climactic events is Jesus’s overturning of the money tables at the temple.
Tradition says that the incident was a ceremonial cleansing of the temple of its commercial enterprises because those in charge of the temple had turned a house of worship into a commercial enterprise.
Jesus disrupted the commercial operation by upsetting the tables where the temple lackeys sold required animals for sacrifice.
Continues >>
Editor’s Note: Because Western civilization embraced Christianity as the ruling religion, the teachings of Jesus lost much of their insurrectionist, pacifistic and egalitarian origins. In effect, Christianity was bent to the interests of kings, politicians, generals and the rich.
Similarly, the story of Jesus’s fateful last week in Jerusalem has been reshaped to minimize perhaps its central event, his overturning of the money tables at the temple, a direct challenge to the merging of religious and political power of his day, as the Rev. Howard Bess recounts in this guest essay:
Christians have special celebrations for the key events of Holy Week, but they often overlook one of the most important.
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But there is a missing piece. The incident that gives sense to the week’s climactic events is Jesus’s overturning of the money tables at the temple.
Tradition says that the incident was a ceremonial cleansing of the temple of its commercial enterprises because those in charge of the temple had turned a house of worship into a commercial enterprise.
Jesus disrupted the commercial operation by upsetting the tables where the temple lackeys sold required animals for sacrifice.
Continues >>
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