Peter’s desire to build sukkoth (huts, booths, tabernacles) and the Jewish celebration of the same name recall Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. But Sukkoth observances focus even more on God’s faithful providence (provision) in life’s transient circumstances (huts offer temporary shelter, but God is our eternal shelter). Ecclesiastes, attributed to King Solomon, is read during the celebration of Sukkoth. Solomon laments that all is vanity - even his building of the temple - since nothing built by human hands can last. In the end, only our relationship with God remains.

Jesus’ cleansing of the temple is a “godsend” for those who struggle with God’s apparent lack of attention to evil in the world. For others, Jesus’ expression of anger/zeal is disconcerting. Matthew 21:14 explains that, immediately following this disruption, the blind and the lame came to Jesus, and Jesus healed them. And we see that the result of the cleansing is a restoration of the Father’s house to its intended purpose - to be a place of prayer and healing.

Jews went to the temple (three time a year, at very least) out of religious obligation and out of a desire to receive forgiveness and offer praise and thanksgiving. We imagine that they were looking for atonement - “at-one-ment” with God, as some authors have expressed it. (And this was the reason for the buying/selling, since sacrifice was part of the prescribed process of atonement.)

What about US? What do WE ask of our church? Some of us want a place where we can be with other Christians and where our children and our children’s children can be with other Christians. Some of us look for acceptance in a particular social group. Some of us seek a place of refreshment, a place that reminds us of eternal values hidden just below - or just above - the surface of our everyday activities.

Jesus stated, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.” That temple was Jesus’ body. May we, as a body of believers, be “built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). May our passionate (zealous) love for God, and our compassionate (zealous) love for one another, be a temple where God is pleased to dwell.