Holy Week 2023 - Monday
Our hope is that these videos stir your affection and love for Jesus. As the days grow closer to Easter we hope the anticipation builds and we celebrate our Risen Savior.
Here’s a Video detailing what happened on the Monday of Holy Week: Monday
MATTHEW 21:12-20
12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he over.turned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” 14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children cry.ing out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” 17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there. 18 In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. 20 When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” Upon entering the city of Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple only to find it a place of commerce rather than worship. He immediately condemned the actions of those who had defiled His Father’s house and put an end to their wicked ways. Jesus overturned the money-changers’ tables and the seats of those who made the temple just one more venue to make a profit. Echoing the words of Old Testament prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, Jesus said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer” and “you have made it a den of robbers.” (v. 13) While his actions on the surface were angry in nature, this was an act of love. He didn’t merely condemn their practice and leave. We see in the very next verse how he remained in the temple and healed those in need. Jesus aimed to reform the people’s reverence for our holy God. Without the proper attitude of reverence and worship, the people would never be able to relate to their God. As Jesus and his disciples returned to Jerusalem the next morning, they came across a fig tree. In a manner that truly baffled those with him, Jesus cursed the tree without any apparent provocation. However, on the heels of his visit to the temple the day before, we can gain insight into Jesus’ motivation. Just as the scribes and chief priests had withered the temple and its effectiveness in worshipping the Father, Jesus withered this tree to demonstrate this reality. What God had intended to produce fruit in the lives of his people, men had profaned and consequently produced fruitlessness.
