In a book I’ve previously read which focuses on the whole idea of the value of perception, the statement is made that ‘How you view God, is the most important thing in your life.’ Blanket statement. That how you perceive God has massive ramifications on your life, either positive or negative, based off this one area of our lives. The case is argued further that the author believes it is the most important thing for us as humans to grasp.
How we see something changes everything? How we perceive things matters?
If we take this idea and apply it to the things around us that we have, the value of perception tends to be quite a big deal. Take a moment to objectively look around at social media, at influencers, at trends, at the community, at the workplace, at the church gatherings that surrounds you in your world. Think about the spaces, places, and environments you find yourself in on a daily basis. Consider the interactions you are involved in from conversations with those closest to you, to glances at the stranger you walk past down the street.
What do you see?
I imagine you could land at a place similar to myself where what we see often holds value to what we think. What we see actually plays a significant part in how we think. What we perceive in our environments, in our interactions, and in our spaces informs us greatly about those very things. Again, either for better or for worse.
I’m sure we can all relate to that extremely intense person that we’ve tried to avoid talking to because we know we’ll end up locked in conversation for at least half-an-hour. Or maybe that individual who we thought acted cold towards us and therefore we try to stay far away. But after a while we actually discover that these people are just like us and we end up becoming friends which we couldn’t possibly perceive at the start.
And it’s the same with the situations we find ourselves in too. We are all familiar with those things in our lives that end up better than we thought. Maybe it’s a job, or a relationship, or a decision that just worked out way better than what everyone else thought. Conversely, the other side of that point is those scenarios that we apply the phrase of “I told you so!” to when someone went against what we thought.
Whether it was for better or for worse, a positive or a negative, a high or a low, the impact of perceptions remains. Each example involves the situation unfolding, paired against how we thought it should go. Sometimes they line up, sometimes they don’t. But regardless, perception and our thinking appear to be in tandem with each other.
It’s off this backdrop that we are going to look at a story that has the potential to be the very thing that goes against what we think. It’s a story that went against the thinking of those within the situation and involves one who tends to do the same to our thinking today.
That one is Jesus.
Let’s look at where we find Jesus in one of the most thought-provoking passages for His followers to read today.
Matthew 21:12:
"Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.”
Jesus entered the temple off the back of arriving at Jerusalem on a donkey’s back. While this could sound irrelevant, this was the biggest declaration Jesus could make in announcing He was the Messiah. The people knew the prophecy found in Zechariah stating how the King will come riding on a donkey which would have caused them to realise what was taking pace. Jesus was letting people truly know who He was.
However, this story in the temple comes right after Jesus rides into Jerusalem and it hits hard. It’s the kind of story that makes the reader have to do a double take. Jesus you did what? Flipping tables is a pretty aggressive act. Like it could’ve been a lot tamer or a lot less provocative.
But He still did it. And with good reason we would find out.
See these stories do exactly what we mentioned earlier to our thinking by provoking us and our expectations. I mean it definitely would have happened to the chief priests and the teachers of the law who were present at that time. I can almost imagine the hush moment of silence as the tables crashed off the floor leaving remnants of destruction. Everyone sheepishly looking around in the awkward wake of this moment.
Remember the timeline of this event in the context we find it. This is right after Jesus has been recognised as the Messiah who was coming to bring liberation to the Jews. I imagine the crowds would have followed him right into the entrance of the temple, desperate to see what His first act would be as the pronounced Messiah.
And what does He do?
He goes right to the heart of where I imagine the crowds would have least expected Him to be His most provocative. I presume they would have perceived Jesus to go be at His most aggressive in the headquarters of the Roman rule in that time. Like surely Jesus goes to the place that is causing the Jewish people their most amount of oppression. If you were a Jew in the crowd chanting ‘Hosannah!’ you would have expected Jesus to disrupt the Romans more than the temple. It wasn’t as the people had perceived. It went against their thinking.
So why did He do it?
Well we find out that the temple also called ‘My House’ by Jesus, has been a victim of dark pollution. It had once been a place of presence, glory, and holiness but had now become a money-making business taking advantage of people through manipulation. Jesus explains how it once was a house of prayer but is now a den of robbers. It was once a place where God would dwell, but now it was just any other trading building.
It was operating out of its design. For Jesus, it is perceived as one of the highest injustices and His perceptions are always right. Jesus is clear that sin has no shelf life in the house of the Lord, nor in His people either. But nevertheless it was still there, so something had to shift. And it wasn’t going to be Jesus.
This shifting we see, as Jesus flips the tables, is a glimpse into the nature of almighty God and what He perceives tolerated sin as amongst those who claim to follow Him. Remember Jesus only did and say what the Father was doing and saying (John 5:19). He only moved when the Father was moving and I can only imagine His heartbreak as He watched the very people who claimed to love Him, prostitute themselves to their selfish desires.
What we see is that if we are going to accept Jesus as our Messiah today, then we also have to accept the tables that He’s going to flip. If we’re going to shout ‘Hosannah’ in the streets, then we have to also be willing to watch the tables turn.
We’re going to have to let Jesus flip our perception on what He should and shouldn’t be doing in our lives. We’re going to have to accept the nature of God revealed in this story that is: His flipping, is above our thinking.
As we enthrone Him as the King of our lives, we’re going to have to accept that whatever tables He flips in our lives need flipping. In this story it was clear that something had to shift in that temple due to the corruption taking place. But it takes someone to physically grab the table and flip it. And in our lives, it takes someone to put an end to the corruption we find ourselves in today. Our tables being self-righteousness, unhealthy habits, perverse talk etc. Basically anything that isn’t bringing glory to His name or reflecting His nature well to the world around us. Someone has got to flip them.
That person is Jesus.
Only He can make you righteous. Only He can make clean your hands. Only He can purify your heart. Only He can renew your mind. These are the tables that Jesus must flip in the individual if He is to be made King over their life. Sin cannot be a tolerated, overlooked, brushed under the carpet non-negotiable when Jesus is about.
We either perceive the celebration of the Messiah and One who turned the tables both as our King, or we reject it all. We don’t get the choice of having the celebration without the cleansing. Jesus is too kind to give you a false representation of himself. He won’t let you live a life where you think exulting Jesus as king of your life changes nothing.
From what we can see in scripture, Jesus’ first act after declaring He is the Messiah is the table flipping temple antics. If we cannot perceive that once Jesus is declared as our Messiah that He may need to flip some of our tables, then we can’t say He is truly established as King over our lives yet.
How we perceive God is the most important thing in our lives.
Our perception will try to reason, dominate, and control, but ultimately we decide who and what will be King over our lives.
We must perceive Jesus’ unrelenting love and grace for us His children, alongside the sinful tables set in our lives which He longs to clear for us. To truly know what you love, you must also know what you hate. God loves His people, but He hates sin. The table-flipping comes from His love as He won’t let the Devil enslave His children if they choose to return to Him.
I pray that we perceive God to the fullest degree possible. That we perceive Him as our celebratory King, just as much as the One who cleanses the temple.
Invite Him once again to flip any tables that need flipped while crowning Him as Lord over your life today.
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