Scary Stuff

"It is written," he said to them, 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you have turned it into a 'den of thieves'." (Matt. 21:13).

The leaders of the Temple in Jerusalem would surely have recognized Jesus' reference to Jeremiah 7:11:  Do you consider this House, which bears My name, to be a den of thieves?  As for Me, I have been watching--declares the Lord. 

The Book of Jeremiah opens (after the call to prophesy) with these words:

The word of the Lord came to me:  What do you see, Jeremiah?

I replied: I see a branch of an almond (shaqed) tree.

The Lord said to me:

You have seen right,

For I am watchful (shoqed) to bring My word to pass.

And the word of the Lord came to me a second time:

What do you see?  I replied:

I see a steaming pot,

Tipped away from the north.

And the Lord said to me:

From the north shall disaster break loose

Upon all the inhabitants of the land!

For I am summoning all the peoples

Of the kingdoms of the north,

declares the Lord (1:11-15).

Jeremiah clearly saw the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon, and he was sent to prophesy what he saw coming.  He prophesied for 40 years, from the death of King Josiah to the beginning of the Babylonian Exile in 587 B.C.E.  But he also prophesied that the people would return to the land after the period of exile.  He agonized over the words God made him speak to his people; he suffered at the response of the people to his message -- they actually threw him down a deep well where no one could hear him words any longer, and left him to die.

When Jesus said, "You have turned [My house] into a den of thieves," the Temple leaders must have been terrified.  I'm sure they ran to the scroll of Jeremiah to refresh their memories on the context of those words:

Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel:  Mend your ways and your actions, and I will let you dwell in this place.  Don't put your trust in illusions and say, "The temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these [buildings]."  No, if your really mend your your ways and your actions; if you execute justice between one man and another; if you do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow; if you do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place; if you do not follow other gods, to your own hurt ---then only will I let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers for all time.  See, you are relying on illusions that are of no avail.  Will you steal and murder and commit adultery and swear falsely, and sacrifice to Baal, and follow other gods whom you have not experienced, and then come and stand before Me in this House which bears My name and say, "We are safe"? -- to do all these abhorrent things!  Do you consider this House, which bears My name, to be a den of thieves?  As for Me, I have been watching--declares the Lord.

Was Jesus, like Jeremiah, prophesying the coming destruction of Jerusalem and of the Second Temple?  If so, he, like Jeremiah, needed to be gotten rid of.  The message was unthinkable:  it could not happen twice!  The temple leaders were already treading on thin ice with the occupation of Rome and with Roman soldiers watching their every move.  They could not tolerate any movement which threatened the shaky stability they had --- and here is this Fellow maybe prophesying the destruction of the city once again.  Never mind that Jeremiah was right all along; their ancestors did not want to hear what he was saying.

Indeed, God had already told Jeremiah: You shall say all these things to them, but they will not listen to you; you shall call to them, but they will not respond to you....For the people of Judah have done what displeases Me -- declares the Lord.  They have set up their abominations in the House which is called by My name, and they have defiled it.  

Chapter 7 of the Book of Jeremiah is pretty scary, saying, "they acted worse than their fathers."  If Jesus was calling attention to that chapter, it might have been well to listen to Him.  But as we now know, the Second Temple and the city of Jerusalem were both utterly destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.  Whoever had not escaped from the city beforehand was sold into slavery:  men, women, and children.  What was unthinkable in 30 A.D. actually occurred 40 years later!

Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 of Jeremiah have such parallels in the time of Jesus.  Chapter 8 ends with Jeremiah saying this:

Because my people is shattered, I am shattered;

I am dejected, seized by desolation.

Is there no balm in Gilead?

Can no physician be found?

Why has healing not yet

Come to my poor people?

Oh, that my head were like water,

My eyes a fount of tears!

Then would I weeep day and night

For the slain of my poor people (8:21-23).

Jeremiah wept for 40 years over what God had shown him would happen.  Jesus, too, wept over Jerusalem because they had not recognized the time of their visitation.  Unfortunately, even today, we see statues of Jesus and of Mary shedding tears.  And for 31 years, Mary has been appearing at Medjugore, warning us that she will be the "last prophet on earth."  If the 40 year timeframe holds up, that leaves us precious little time to heed the message.