Tables Turned: What the Temple Cleansing Revealed

If the triumphal entry was Jesus’ declaration, the cleansing of the temple was his confrontation. It was one of the first stories I ever heard about that final week—and even now, I can still feel the weight of it. Because it was violent. Because it was unlike anything I had heard about him before. I’ve been told he drove people out. He overturned tables. Some even say he used a whip. That part frightened me. It showed a side of him I hadn't imagined—forceful, unwavering, filled with a holy fury. I wasn’t there. But those who were spoke of it often. Some retold it with awe. Others with unease. He walked into the temple—not quietly, not as a pilgrim, but as someone with authority. As someone with grief in his eyes and judgment in his steps. In my Gospel, the moment comes framed by the story of a fig tree. Jesus comes to a fig tree and sees that it had bore no fruit. He then curses it before entering the temple, and later on the way back from the temple we see it w...