Luke 19:45-48 | El Greco | You have turned the temple into a robbers’ den

Luke 19:45-48   You have turned the temple into a robbers’ den

Christ driving the Traders from the Temple,  Painted by El Greco (1541 - 1614), Oil on canvas, Executed circa 1600, © National Gallery, London Jesus went into the Temple and began driving out those who were selling. ‘According to scripture,’ he said ‘my house will be a house of prayer. But you have turned it into a robbers’ den.’ He taught in the Temple every day. The chief priests and the scribes, with the support of the leading citizens, tried to do away with him, but they did not see how they could carry this out because the people as a whole hung on his words   READ MORE     Reflection on the Painting The ‘relationship’ between Jesus as a person and the temple as a place, is always quite an interesting one when mentioned in the Gospels. Jesus uses the Temple to teach and so He uses it as the space to draw people closer to God. But yet, He is very critical at the same time of what takes place in the temple, and it's commercialisation. He holds up an ‘ideal’ of what the Temple should be, and should be used for. In that sense, we are all confronted with the same tensions in our lives between the ideals we hold, and the actual experiences we have on a day to day basis. But yet, going to the temple, or nowadays the church, is exactly where we have to live, build and celebrate our faith. It should be a place of Holy worship, without too many distractions, certainly not commercial distractions. The tradition of setting apart a special place dedicated solely for God's worship has been part of our Christian faith from the very beginning. By cleansing the temple of buyers and sellers, Jesus showed that it was to be used for no other purpose than the worship of God and that as our Church was founded and grew, we as believers needed such spaces to congregate and celebrate our faith. The word ‘church’ by which we designate the place of divine worship, is derived from the Greek kuriakon (‘the Lord's house’), and embodies this idea of its sacred character. In our painting, we see El Greco using his usual vibrant yellows, pinks and blues, combined with a very theatrical composition, witnessing the chaos that went on when Jesus cleansed the temple. Christ’s anger is shown through his body gestures. In the top left we see a relief sculpture of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden, which accentuates the sinfulness of the traders' actions. In contrast, some of the Apostles stand in front of another bas relief sculpture showing the Old Testament figure Abraham, who was willing to sacrifice his own son on God’s command… And so did God with his own son Jesus… by Patrick van der Vorst