The storm begins:

Simon Zealot sees tables turned

Breakfast in Bethany is always a good time because you know you’re among friends. Even better, friends who bake good bread. On that Monday morning, there was the added bonus of thinking we might be at the beginning of something earth-shattering.

The support we’d experienced as Jesus rode into Jerusalem the previous day was far greater than I had ever expected to see. It seemed to me that, if it all came to a head, the fight might not be won by the old guard. The temple authorities could actually find they didn’t have authority anymore. With that thought in my head, every nerve in my body seemed to be strung out on the excitement of it all.

Of course, people had said these things before. I’d seen rebellion come to nothing. When the procession had reached the city yesterday, the weapons of my master’s enemies were well-sheathed. Today it might be a different matter. But you could hope. And, on that morning, I did.

The teaching wasn’t what everyone was talking about by the end of the day.

We all understood that Jesus would want to return to the temple to give his teaching the widest possible audience in this holiday period. And that was our destination the moment breakfast was finished. However, the teaching wasn’t what everyone was talking about by the end of the day.

Instead, it was the incident that occurred when we were in the Court of the Gentiles. This outer part of the temple is where everyone can come – male, female, Jew, Greek, anyone from anywhere.

That ought to have made it a magnificent melting-pot. It wasn’t. The only part of the whole place where men and women, Jews and non-Jews could pray together had become a seedy and crooked marketplace.



The way that ordinary folk paid their annual gift for the temple should have been simple. But even that involved currency exchange booths as if you were moving into a foreign country, which meant a nice slice of profit for the money-changers. The commission added up to about an extra half day’s wages… from every single person.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. If you wanted to sacrifice a pair of doves, you needed to buy them in this temple courtyard. And a pair of doves could cost twenty times as much inside the temple than they did outside. Is that fair trading? No, it’s daylight robbery. The building at the heart of our faith had become a place where the power was wielded for the benefit of the already powerful.

In spite of that, people had got used to the corruption. Even the High Priest had stalls to fleece the tourists in this bizarre festival marketplace. The hard-nosed would shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Well, every priest has a trader.’ It had become the way things were and hardly worthy of comment anymore.

Jesus had just looked at it the night before. That morning, he took action. Without a single word, he strode into the middle of all the money-making and starting over-turning tables and benches. It was chaos. Nobody had expected such an action so absolutely no one stopped him.

Some people, as usual, were using the temple as a short cut to get across the city – he stopped that as well, sent people back the way they had come.

Then he turned to those who were staring wide-eyed at what had happened and said, ‘Have you ever read your scriptures? Well, have you? It says: “My house will be a house of prayer – for all nations.” But what’s happened? You have turned the place into a hide-out for crooks and thieves.’

And that was that. He turned away from the mess and started healing people. It was almost more astonishing than the showdown with the traders. He didn’t stay angry but went back to doing what he’d always done – looking after people and finding the right words to help them.

The authorities were furious. The Pharisees tried to get him to quieten down his followers. They got nowhere, of course. But I heard them muttering about how this needed to be stopped.

‘Good or bad day?’ I asked Judas later in a quiet moment. I couldn’t make up my mind.
‘Good one if he carries it through – they’re on the back foot now, however much they may splutter and make their empty threats.’

Then he paused and furrowed his brow. ‘But it’s a seriously bad day if he backs of having come this far.’

I knew what he meant: the man we had followed was on a knife edge and things could finish up in a dozen different ways. What I didn’t guess, even for a moment, was the part Judas Iscariot would play in that.

Where to find this story in your Bible?

Mark 11:15–18
Matthew 21:12–16

Easter Inside Out is available here

David Kitchen is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, teacher and storyteller who has been making the Bible come alive for longer than he cares to remember. In Bible in Ten he combines his down-to-earth writing skills with almost 50 years’ experience in church leadership and worship. His hobbies include music, poetry and playing crawling-up-stairs games with his grandson.

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