12 "After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothersand his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.
13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”"
John 2:12-17
When the King comes to His temple, crisis is always precipitated. This is a principle in spiritual life, and it is surely illustrated by this story. One thinks of how it was in the early Church, when Christ came by His Spirit in the word of the gospel and in the preaching of the apostles. There was disturbance in every synagogue in Asia and Europe. This is the one constant factor in the record of the Acts - division, uproar, dissension. Why? Because it is a King who comes, and men rebel against His lawful authority. Why should Jesus have shown such blazing moral indignation? This can be answered by raising the whole question of what the function of the temple was supposed to be. We have only to look at passages such as 1 Kings 8:22ff and especially vv 30ff and 9:3-5, to realise that it was meant to be a place of prayer, where forgiveness of sin and help in time of trouble could be known and experienced, a place where men could meet a loving and gracious God. What possibilities, what potential of blessing in this, a vehicle and instrument of grace indeed. But here, alas, in the temple of our Lord's day, there was nothing but an empty shell, without heart, and devoid of the Spirit. Its state is eloquently portrayed in Acts 3: the lame man sitting in all his need at the gate of the temple that was supposed to be the symbol of hope and it could give him nothing, for it had nothing to give. This was the tragedy in Jesus' day, and it drew forth from Him this blaze of moral indignation – an indignation doubtless heightened by the fact that the incident took place at the time of the Passover, a time for remembering the mighty acts of God. Where was the God of the Passover in the experience of His people then?