An House of Merchandise

I've been thinking about John 2.

In this chapter, Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover.  He found people using the temple for personal financial gain.  They were buying and selling.

I love verse 15.  "And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple..."

I believe if this case were taken before a modern-day court, they would classify it as "premeditated."

Christ's "driving out" actions were not an automatic reaction from the scene He found before Him.  They were meditated.  He witnessed a scene and methodically began forming a solution.  He didn't just immediately kick and scream and yell.  Can you imagine the thoughts running through His mind as he made a scourge of small cords?  His eyes were busy, His hands were busy, His mind was working.  He knew what He had to do.

As a farm girl, I love the phrase, "He drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen."  Ask me if I know anything about using cords to drive cattle.  Go ahead.  ASK.

To stand in the midst of a herd of any kind of living anything takes guts.  It does.  To stand in the midst of a herd and take charge?  It takes a whole new level of guts: grit, courage, spit, fire, fearlessness.
Picture dirty jeans and dust on your boots, sweat on your sunburned neck, a breeze on your long-sleeved Wrangler shirt, a WHIP in your hands.
You are commanding.  You are confident.  You are on a mission to move.

The Savior made his scourge, and He moved the herd.

As I thought about the Savior moving people, I thought about the place.  It wasn't in the corrals west of town where I usually move herds... it was IN the Temple.  I thought of my home temple.  And then I thought of my body.
My temple... the one created by my Father.  The one I can't seem to reign in when it comes to chocolate.  The one who created and birthed three glorious children.  The one who has given up four wisdom teeth, two tonsils, and -as of Saturday -one toenail.  It's scarred.  It's stretched.  It has healing power and limitless capacity to learn. 
It is HOLY.

But there are merchants selling temples.  There is a billion (probably trillion) dollar porn industry.  There is prostitution.  There are sex shops and strip clubs and Victoria Secret.  There are lingerie shops.  There are graphic, awful, illegal practices going on with bodies.

This horrifies me.  HORRIFIES me.
It's bad enough that it's happening, that it's spinning out of control, but worse still is that it has permeated the walls of MY home, MY body, MY marriage.  My intimate and personal places where I should be in control have been desecrated, defiled, demoralized.

I move beyond being horrified and start to feel something far worse: numb.
I start to feel numb and hopeless and dark.

And in those moments, I will picture My Brother making a scourge with small cords.  I will picture Him taking it and standing in the midst of the darkened, secretive, huddled herd... and with His word and cord will He drive them OUT of the Temples.
With His cord will He stand at the foot of holiness and command the greed and the glitter and the grotesque...
"Take these things hence."

The Savior is the Savior.
He will drive herds with grit.
And I will be his part of his scourge -I will be one of those small cords.  Shaking off the shackles of shame and fear as I become an instrument in his hands to cleanse!

Porn is Godless.
It's table turning time.