One week before His death Jesus sat humbly on a colt and was led through the streets of Jerusalem in celebration. People waved palm leaves, laying them—along with their coats—under the donkey’s feet, shouting words of praise and worship. They rejoiced, calling to Him, adoring Him, loving Him. The whole city knew Jesus of Nazareth had arrived.
Throughout this little trek, the Lord knew that one week later these same people would viscously shout at Pilot to have Him crucified.
His disciples led the donkey to the temple, where Jesus dismounted, entered His Father’s house, and humble no more, proceeded to wipe out all the merchants and bankers. Then the sick and lame and blind replaced these robbers and Jesus served them—healing, loving, tending His people. Can you imagine going into a place completely unable to see and coming out sighted? Can you imagine the agony of crawling up the steps t enter and walking out? Miraculous! Joyous! Amazing! And yet, the temple ‘holy’ men were vexed, angry, indignant that Jesus helped these people.
OH! But then the children came to see Him, laughing and giggling without a care. According to the ‘holy’ men—how dare they enter their sacred place! Yet Jesus welcomed the children with open arms, delighting in their youth and happiness.
The chief priests and scribes? Not so much welcoming…no, none at all.
How can it be that anyone would find fault in healing, joy, laughter, youth, delight? How can a heart be so blackened that these beautiful things are considered bad or wrong?
So Jesus left and spent the night outside the city, but when He returned to the temple the next day, the leaders were still stewing. So they, in their false authority and piety, asked the Son of God by what authority He thought He was doing performing miracles.
Did Jesus deign to answer their question? Nope. But He didn’t let them off, either. Instead He replied with a question of His own, which utterly stumped them. So Jesus asked a bunch more questions—ones that clearly identified to the gathering crowd, the ‘holy’ men’s pride and ego and lack of honesty. Jesus called them out and that action hurt their feelings. They could have humbled themselves, admitted their wrongs and been saved, but instead they began plotting.
Knowing their minds, and in front of that large crowd, Jesus brought forth the truth about these temple leaders. He called them hypocrites, actors who loved to show off for the crowd, strive for attention, seek only the ‘best seats’, and demand respect from their lowly parishioners.
Then Jesus told the crowd not to call their biological Dad ‘father’, or their leaders, ‘leaders’. He usurped the temple holy men and told the people that their only father was His heavenly Father, and their only leader was the One Christ. Jesus spoke of servanthood, and being humble, and how those two things would be rewarded by His Father. He went on to scorch the holy men for denying those they perceived as lower than themselves access to heaven—like they had any power to do so. Jesus called them blind to everything around them, unrighteous, leeches, neglectful of their duties to the people they were supposed to be serving. He called them serpents, a brood of vipers, and then He asked them if they thought they could escape being sentenced to hell!
YIKES!!!
There are consequences, and the Triune God promises retribution to false leaders and hypocrites!
Matthew chapters 21 and 23