So my goodness, what do we take from such a chapter? Was Jesus simply having a bad day? After all, he has been dealing with a lot. From disciples who don’t understand what he’s come to do to consistent confrontations with the religious leaders, who should have known who He was and what He was all about. It could have been and likely, to some degree, all of those things. Yes, even having a bad day, he was human.
But in the midst of all this, and at the heart of His frustrations, we see His heart. We see a deep desire for His Father’s house to be a place of prayer and where all would come to experience and get to know God, even the Gentiles. He desires a deep, abiding faith with the Father. Jesus said I have come that they may have life and life to full or, in the ESV, life abundant. He has come to save humanity from its sins. And as we know, sin is the very thing that wreaks havoc on our lives, relationships, and the world.
This chapter tells a couple of things. It tells us that anger is not always a bad thing. Righteous anger, anger for the right, holy, and just things in this world are good and modeled to us by Jesus. The second thing we learn from this text is that Jesus wants us to be different; he wants the Church to be different. He wants the Church; he wants Peachtree Church to be a place of prayer where all are welcomed and invited to experience God and His power. All means all.