Overturning the Tables
In the ancient world, a temple was a place where heaven and earth overlapped. And, though the Jews knew that the Lord was not literally confined to the Temple in Jerusalem, at the time of Jesus they certainly saw the Temple as that kind of place: where God dwelt.
But in the day of Jesus the Temple had become a corrupt institution that preyed on the poor and vulnerable and kept the rich and powerful in power. So, Jesus here stages a spectacular protest in which he overturns the tables of the moneylenders and drives out the animals.
Then, he goes even further and implies that his body is now the Temple.
In other words, Jesus is telling those present that heaven and earth meet in him.
John tells us that though his disciples didn’t understand at the time, after the Resurrection they looked back on that moment and it all made sense:
“After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.”
John 2:22
