Jesus Clears the Temple: The Road to Resurrection

Apr 20

Many people assume that because there is such an enormity of celebratory activities surrounding Christmas that it is the most important holiday for Christians. Well, it isn’t. Easter is the highest holy day within all of Christendom.

*2025 "Christ Clears the Temple" Proof Round, by Chris Duane*

Easter Sunday celebrates the fulfillment of all of the prophecies in the Bible, which for 2000 years, had foretold the coming of Christ. The Resurrection of Christ confirmed the hopes and dreams of those waiting for the Messiah and also their long awaited acquisition of salvation.

Most of Jesus’ contemporaries missed the importance of the moment. Some rejected His divinity, while others condemned Him as a fraud. But, the few men who mattered were not deceived because they knew the truth and they believed!

After Christ rose from the dead, His twelve Apostles spent the remainder of their lives preaching the Word of God and were able to offset or negate every objection, criticism, difficulty or persecution to which they were subjected. Their lives were symbols of their faith in Jesus as God, even unto their deaths.

As a result of the Apostles courageous evangelism, and despite their knowing full-well the risks involved, they persisted. The culmination of their efforts resulted in thousands of conversions. But it also resulted in eleven of the twelve Apostles being horrifically martyred for their belief in Christ’s teachings.

St. John, who was Jesus’ closest friend and into whose care the crucified Jesus placed His Mother, survived to write the most personal and detailed accounts of Jesus’ life. He is considered one of the Four Evangelists and his writings are included in the Bible as the Gospel of St. John.

How can anyone not believe in Jesus’ divinity, when the men who lived with Him for three years, and knew Him better than anyone on earth, went willingly to their brutal deaths in His name? No one, much less eleven men, would ever sacrifice their lives in that manner if they believed Jesus was a fraud.

*“Christ Clears the Temple” – Silver Coin*

Chris’ new coin, Jesus Clears the Temple, was released just in time for Easter because this singular event defines the beginning of Jesus’ journey to the cross. When Jesus angrily chased the money changers, and the marketers, out of the Temple in Jerusalem, His behavior shocked everyone. So much so that all Four Evangelists recorded the event in their potions of the Bible. Why would He have gotten so uncharacteristically furious and draw so much, previously unwanted, attention to Himself?

Christ’s behavior that day was so out of the ordinary for this peaceful, quiet, kind and loving man that it took everyone by surprise. Granted, Jesus did not want the House of His Father to be reviled by the men who cheated the pilgrims when they exchanged their Roman coins for the accepted offering of Jewish silver shekels. But, His fury still doesn’t seem justified for the infractions exhibited at the Temple. Especially when you consider that the swindling of pilgrims had never been opposed to by the Pharisees nor by the Sadducees who were the Temple priests. In fact, many of these flagrant deceptions had been going on for many years.

So why suddenly, the out of character display of fury? In retrospect, Christ pulled the trigger on His demise that day. It was the final straw for the Pharisees, who had been quietly demonizing Jesus for the previous three years. This “attack” gave them all of the ammunition they needed to plot for His arrest and ultimate Crucifixion.

Chris’ coin, Christ Clears the Temple, memorializes this historic event which began Christ’s presaged journey towards the Cross and humanity’s ultimate salvation from sin.