Turning the tables

While we don’t always center the Palm Sunday message around this clearing of the temple, it is very much a part of Jesus’s triumphal entry—illustrating once again that the people expected the Messiah to look a very particular way.

The way they expected him to look was like the military leaders of the world—but Jesus looked very different. He came to usher in a kingdom different than the one they thought they wanted, and clearing the temple was just one way Jesus illustrated, in profoundly strong ways, that something else was happening here.
The kingdom of God had come, and was coming, and it didn’t look like they thought it would.