Monday

This was it. This was the day that got Jesus killed.

He didn't get executed by the Romans for healing sick people. He didn't get arrested for preaching good news to the poor. And he certainly didn't get sentenced to death for riding a donkey into the eastern gate of Jerusalem (no matter how much it lampooned the Roman's occupation).

Jesus got killed for breaching the peace.

Well, it was more than that really. He breached the peace in the Jewish temple. And during the Passover celebration. And he made a mess of the temple market.

Well, it was really more than all of that as well. Jesus attacked, both symbolically and physically, the economic system that was grinding down the working people to the betterment of the occupiers and the corrupt priesthood. That's what got the temple guards attention, and that's what cause the temple authorities and the priests to begin plotting to arrest him.

We read this story with our post-Easter eyes and assume Jesus was repudiating the entire temple itself, if not the whole idea of the blood sacrifice. But those motives are not in the gospel text. Instead, Jesus is portrayed as attacking the perversion of the temple practice and the priesthood.

Remember, the temple authorities, indeed the high priest himself, were appointed by the Romans during this period. Its no accident that the high priests before and after Caiaphas had Greek names (Jonathan and Annas) and not Jewish ones. These folks had a vested interest in the temple enterprise, and it had very little to do with atoning for the sins of the common man. What they did concern themselves with was gathering enough temple tax from the poor devotees to pay off the Romans so that they could keep their lofty political positions.

So Jesus lashed out against this system on this day some two thousand years ago. And its is my strong belief that, without this day, their is no Thursday arrest, no Friday execution, and no Easter morning.