Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them,
“It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.”
And every day he was teaching in the temple area.
The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people, meanwhile,
were seeking to put him to death,
but they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words.

The area where Jesus started the purge was in the football-sized area called Gentiles Court. This was a big area built specifically for non-believers in Jahwe who wanted to seek God. Between Gentile Court and surrounding Women Court and the Temple where men, Levites and priests could enter, was a wall with warnings that no gentile can enter unless they want to die.

Gentile Court became a marketplace where you could buy coins or animals for offering, for a much steeper price. It became a commerce space, with a religious emblem. Jesus reminds all that the temple as a place to seek His Father, place of prayer, communion with the Almighty.

We are trying to sell means and lure people to God in various ways:

everything will be easy
you will be blessed materially
you will find friends
you will be healed
you will have all your needs met
you will find tranquility
you will find people with the same political views
you will find a husband

We seldomly say:

you will find God. You will find Him when you enter into His courts which are vast and full of places to seek Him.

We also cheat ourselves in the court where we should approach God:

we keep ourselves busy in the court of gentiles, selling Him and telling ourselves we do ministry.
we keep lives busy as an excuse to go further, to offer something of worth.
we act as the traffic of thoughts and deeds will excuse us from the real encounter, reception of Light, Bread and incense of our prayers before the curtain of His Presence.
we buy and sell where we should seek. We like the noise of it, it clutters the emptiness which longs for relationship.
we try to buy God’s grace by making offerings that don’t cleanse our hearts.
we try to show off with better outwardly offerings without letting ourselves enter into the place where He wants to live as Lord.

At the end, after the court is purged, people came to hear the words of Jesus, to hang on Life. Everyone is hungry for a true word. Living word. Living touch. We crave the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Clean the court of seeking so only Jesus can be seen and heard. So no other person or worry or advertisement will snatch you away from the place where you can be real in front of the real God.

Paul addressed the wall with warnings of death for gentiles: “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.” - Eph 2:14 He reminds us that all who seek honestly have access to the Creator of all things.

Seekers