With Palm branches and Hosannas, he was welcomed into the city
Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth.
Jesus the prophet, the crowds proclaimed him
The prophet did what prophets do. He showed the city, the temple, what God thought
What God thought of their ways.
For God did not like their ways.
Their ways where money was exchanged in the temple courts, so the sacrificial doves could be bought, then offered to God to atone for sin
God did not like those ways for only the poorest of the poor bought doves in offering.
For that was all they could afford.
But at what cost?
At what cost?
That their sins were atoned for, but there was no bread in their stomachs?
That those changing Roman money into temple coinage would take their cut. Well, they had to make their living somehow.
But was that what God had intended when he had allowed the temple to be built?
That the poorest of the poor, destitute, might go hungry but their sins could be atoned for?
And Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth raged.
He raged at the system, which made good money for some, while forcing others deeper into poverty
He raged at the stripping of dignity from the poor
He raged that those who should know God’s laws regarding the poor in their midst, ignored them
So he marched into the temple and drove the money changes and the dove sellers out.
For he was Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth
And more that a prophet, a healer.
He healed the blind and lame who entered the temple courts, transformed from a den of robbers into a house of prayer by his actions
The children who now gathered in the temple courts saw what adults could or would not
Jesus, was more than a prophet from Nazareth.
He was the Son of David
The children shouted
Hosanna to the Son of David
From children’s lips came praise
to the Lord’s anointed
Did he know that his raging would seal his fate?
That Jesus’ indignity at the system would turn many against him
and the chief priests and teachers of the law who hand him over to Rome, to die?
Because Jesus raged, in love at injustice
He raged for he loved
Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth
Jesus, the Son of David