28th January 2026

28th January 2026


Pray (ACts)


Read (John 2:12-25 focus v17)


Message (Alan Burke)


Many people have an idea of Jesus that simply doesn’t match up with the pages of scripture. More often than not, he is portrayed as ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ as the hymn writer Charles Wesley puts it. Yes, we see the compassion of Jesus throughout the gospels; we see him befriending those who are often outcasts, excluded, those who are the ‘religious’ have no time for. This is often the popular idea of Jesus. These things are true, but when we begin to look at the four gospels accounts, there are often times that Jesus is anything but meek and mild. When we look at the gospels, Jesus wasn’t afraid to call a spade a spade. He wasn’t afraid to call out sin for what it was or confront error. Here, as he comes to the temple, he had made a whip out of cords and got angry, driving out those who had made the Temple into a market yard. Let’s think of that just for a moment. You weren’t allowed whips in the Temple courts because they were deemed as a weapon, so Jesus has to make one. This isn’t Jesus bursting into a rage in a momentary loss of control; this is a measured response, premeditated, you could say. In response to what Jesus had done, this, we are told, the disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”


This is a quote from Psalm 69:9, where David in his lament cries out to God because of the opposition that he endured, because of his commitment to the temple and the worship of the Lord God. Up to this point, Psalm 69 had not been understood as one that spoke of the coming of the Messiah, the Christ. Yet Jesus is the one that is the key to understanding all of the Old Testament; he is the interpretative lens that all of the scriptures should be understood through. All its sixty-six books focus on Jesus, the one Lord who is the terminal point of God’s promises. While here the disciples remembered what was written, this is still only a glimpse of the fullness of what was unfolding before them. They would only know later, after Jesus had died and risen, after the temple of his body had been raised from the dead, defeating death and sin for all those who would repent and believe. 


Now, how do we square up this portrayal of Jesus, his zeal that is so evident to those with whom he is, a zeal that consumed him, that led Jesus to make a whip of cords, that led him to drive out the animals and money lenders, in effect to be filled with anger? Well, the God that we come before, he is a zealous God, for his worship, for his glory, zealous for the truth, and his people are to be zealous for such things, and it should grieve us when we see his worship, his glory, and truth polluted and defiled, ignored or rejected. Our God is filled with anger at such things. It is possible to be angry and not to sin (Eph 4:26-27). The anger that Jesus displayed here is holy and righteous anger, an anger against the sin of his image-bearers. There are times when what we hear, what we see, what we experience should lead us to anger, a righteous anger. But there are other times when we get angry for things that are of no eternal significance; we can be filled with anger because things weren’t done the way we wanted, when things took too long, when we are like this, we need to repent of our sin, we need to look to Christ, and if we have taken that anger out on someone, that frustration, we need to apologise and seek their forgiveness. Because remember, you do not deserve forgiveness, neither do I, yet we have forgiveness through Christ who died so that we might be forgiven. In our relationships with one another, our attitude should be the same as Christ (see Phil 2:5-11).


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q83 Are all transgressions of the law equally heinous?
A. Some sins in themselves, and by reason of several aggravations, are more heinous in the sight of God than others.
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