The Story – Chapter 25 – Mark 11:12-25

Garbage in, Garbage Out

　　

Imagine the following recipe: 1 over ripe mushy brown banana, a spoiled tomato, 2 rotten eggs, brown leaf lettuce, a generous helping of a 2 week old leftover casserole with mold growing on it and spoiled milk. Put all of these in a large mixing bowl and stir until ready.

I used to make a dish like this when I did youth ministry. It was an object lesson called "Garbage in, Garbage out". The point was that you wouldn’t eat something like this so why would you take something just as gross into your mind or heart. Why would you let your mind dwell on anger and resentment, or lying and cheating or some secret sin? It was a good lesson for teenagers and not a bad one for adults too.

Jesus gave the same lesson. He went into the Temple and cleared it of all the garbage. Everything that was spoiled and rotten, everything that was a stench to his Heavenly Father he drove out of the Temple. The Jews believed that the Temple was literally where God lived. It was His house. For Jesus, the Son of God, to see such filth in his Father’s house was intolerable.

And don’t miss that Jesus calls this "My house" in verse 17. Yes, he was quoting Isaiah, but He is saying that he is not only the Son of God, but also God Himself. The chief priests and teachers of the law immediately began to look for ways to kill Jesus. The text says that they were afraid of him. Isn’t that human nature to be afraid of something that we don’t understand. We feel threatened so we respond with anger and hate.

1 Corinthians 6:19 says: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?" Just as Jesus cleared the Temple of all that was sinful, he will come into our lives and clear our hearts, our minds and even our bodies of sin. Jesus was performing his own object lesson for us to learn and live by.
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