You are already filled, you have already become rich, you have become kings without us; and indeed, I wish that you had become kings so that we also might reign with you. (2Corinthians 4:8)

The Lord Jesus both began and ended his public ministry by entering the Temple and cleansing it. His disciples observed His zeal for His Father’s House as He cleaned out the Temple’s peddlers and moneychangers.

It’s telling, though, how our annual celebrations of His triumphal entry, marking the conclusion of His three years of public ministry, pull up hard and stop short. We celebrate the palm fronds, shouting children, and the Lord mounted on His donkey as he entered Jerusalem. Sometimes we even include the wicked priests and scribes getting all hot and bothered about the children’s cries of praise, but usually that part of the account is brought up only to remind one another of Jesus’ touching response:

And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, And said unto him, Hearest thou what these say?

And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise? (Matthew 21:15-16)

“Babes and sucklings” praise God most perfectly. Think on that, young mother, as you nurse your little one.

Somehow I’d clomped that exchange onto the palm fronds and cloaks and Jesus entering the city. Notice, however, that it was the children’s praise of Jesus, their “shouting in the temple,” that angered the priests and scribes. The confrontation occurred after the joy and worship had moved from the city gates into the Temple.

The Temple rarely makes it into our Palm Sunday worship and preaching. Our focus, remembering and reveling in Jesus’ triumphal entry, is the palm branches and Hosannas on the road into the city. Our little ones enter the sanctuary waving palm fronds, singing “Hosanna in the highest, blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord.” It brings tears to the eyes of their mothers and grandmothers because they know God has perfected His praise in these little ones. It’s so holy.

Truly.

What we recognize as we watch and listen to the children waving their branches and singing each Palm Sunday is, “For once they got it right. Jesus finally received the praise He’s due. King of kings and Lord of Lords! Hallelujah!”

The children got it right, but we only get it half right.

We celebrate Holy week from joy to joy, from Palm Sunday straight to Easter. But my favorite worship service each year has always been our midday Good Friday service.

Of course, no one refers to an irreligious man as a “Christmas and Good Friday Christian.” It’s always, “He’s a Christmas and Easter Christian.” Half-serious, I’ve suggested no one should be allowed to come to worship Easter morning if he hasn’t worshipped with the people of God on Good Friday.

Back to our celebration of Jesus’ triumphal entry: why doesn’t it include His triumphal entry of His Father’s House—the Temple?

Maybe it’s because, like Christmas Eve, Palm Sunday is a worship service intimately connected with little ones and their mothers and celebrating Jesus’ triumphant takeover of His Father’s House would scare the little ones and their mothers. Adding a focus on Jesus’ prophetic ministry swinging his whip and overturning the tables and cash registers of the peddlers of religion would not be women-and-children-friendly.

Still, Jesus’ entry of the temple, condemning and violently attacking the temple’s degraded culture of religion-as-mercantile-enterprise shows our Lord’s glory and authority at least as much as His entry of the gates of Jerusalem. What a triumph! What a victory! See how Jesus shut down the perversion of His Father’s House of Prayer for All Nations!

How telling it is that this very triumphant triumph remains to us a very scary scene—and this despite the plain fact that this very violence was the physical context and backdrop to the children’s cries of worship.

Do we not celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry to the Temple because it has no application to the American church today? Is it not a part of our Palm Sunday worship because the little children wouldn’t understand?

But wait a second. Back then the children had no problem celebrating Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple. It inspired their joyful worship.

Simultaneously, though, those children’s very public joy and worship infuriated the priests and scribes. Here is the full account from Matthew 21:6-17:

The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats. Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!

When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, “Who is this?”

And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.” And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a robbers’ cave.”

And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He had done, and the children who were shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became indignant and said to Him, “Do You hear what these children 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 for Yourself’?”

And He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

All the city was stirred and they asked, “Who is this?”

Note the answer: “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.” Then, immediately, this: “And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables.”

Our Lord’s triumphal entry of His Father’s House cannot be separated from His triumphal entry of Jerusalem. Both entries are a single triumph and both must be linked in our Holy Week worship just as they are linked in the Gospels.

To see our Lord’s triumphal entry to Jerusalem as the main event and His triumphal entry of His Father’s House as a sideshow (and barely that) during our celebration of Palm Sunday is damning of us.

“Damning?” How and why?

Damning because our silence about Jesus’ triumphal entry to His Father’s Temple proves the perpetual truth of His condemnation of the pastors and seminary professors of His Own day, given very publicly:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. (Matthew 23:29-32)

The steady state economy of the culture established in God’s House under God’s priests, pastors, and scribes is, and has always been, to gag, persecute, and kill the prophets—and to oppose any and all reformations. Of course we don’t celebrate Jesus’ cleansings of His Father’s House! When have the established religious leaders ever done so?

We’re too busy making a name for ourselves. We’re too focussed on our next book at the center of our next book table at our next conference—all carefully documented on socials by our stupid sheep who think of their posts publicizing us as their contribution to “God’s work.”

We’re the ones who tell them we are doing “God’s work” when the truth is we are busy servicing our sheep’s pious superstitions which demand a religion of the body—the ceremony, ritual, and sacramentalism perched on top of our carefully constructed foundation of mercantile religious trafficking. We’re so busy. Our victories wear us out so that we never have time to stop and allow the Nazarene prophet to speak still today.

Remember, Jesus both began and ended his earthly ministry by cleansing the Temple, His Father’s House.

Both cleansings were triumphant, but in the eyes of the pastors and elders of His time, both were failures.

Maybe even embarrassing—unless, that is, we’re reading about them in a book 2,000 years later.