Christ Will Not Let His Gifts Be Hidden
- Rev. Christopher Brademeyer
- Aug 9
- 5 min read
Christ Will Not Let His Gifts Be Hidden
The 10th Sunday after Trinity – 8/9/2026
Luke 19:41-48
Rev. Dr. Christopher W. Brademeyer
That portion of God’s holy Word for consideration this morning is our reading from the holy Gospel according to St. Luke in the nineteenth chapter with special emphasis on verses forty-five and forty-six which read as follows:
“And [Jesus] entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, ‘It is written, “My house shall be a house of prayer,” but you have made it a den of robbers.’”[1]
Thus far the Scriptures.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our Lord’s grief should not surprise us, that is, if we know the Scriptures. God does not like when His people are deprived of His truths, His Word, His grace. He does not like when they stray or grow ignorant. He especially does not like when those who have been given the responsibility of overseeing the teaching of His Word and the conduct of His worship instead move on to other things.
Jesus wept over Jerusalem, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”[2] The truth was hidden. They did not see Christ as He is. They did not acknowledge Him as the eternal Son of the Father. They did not see Him as God of God. They rejected Him as the Prophet of the Most High. They cast aside His rule as their loving King. And what remained for them was destruction.
This prophecy of Christ came to be true on or about August 10, 70 anno domini.[3] This was the day that the four year long siege of Titus of Jerusalem’s legions burned the Temple and looted the city. Just as the Lord predicted, the city was encircled by enemy troops. They built fortifications and barricades in order to besiege the city. They broke through the wall and tore down buildings, killing many. When they were done, the city lay in ruin.
Why did this happen? Jesus says it is because they refused to see who He is and what He had come to do. No nation can claim God’s blessings while despising His Christ.
For this reason, the cleaning of the Temple should not surprise us. Jesus wept over faithless Israel, then He turned His attention on those who treated His Father’s house like it was a common marketplace.
We should not quickly gloss over this. Jesus does not delight in judging His people or bringing punishment on them. Our faithlessness does deserve His displeasure and wrath, but it is not a joy for our Lord. Our faithlessness, our greed, our inattention to the weighty mercies of God brings Him great sorrow. Further, our Lord’s ire was not simply because the sellers were known to upcharge for the animals that were inspected to be pure enough to be used for sacrifices, which was a burden especially to poor families. No, it was because everyone misunderstood the very point of the Temple. They misunderstood that it existed to point to the coming of our Lord Jesus. Everything in that sacred building was about Christ. The altar pointed to His sacrifice. The incense pointed to His acceptable offering. The showbread pointed to Him, the very bread from heaven given to the world. But the money changers and the priests who allowed them to sit there, dispensing their wares forgot this.
God is not interested in sacrifices from those whose hearts are consumed with indifference towards suffering, greed, or base self-interest.[4] Even more, He is uninterested in sacrifices from those who seek to justify themselves and to deprive people of His Word. The Temple was not set up to be a place of sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice. God did not want His people to simply go through the motions. He wanted them to remember the point of the sacrifices, that is, that they anticipated the coming death of His Son for the sins of the world. Having first received gifts given through His Word and His promises, He wanted His people to live the gracious, moral, outwardly focused lives. A farmer can spend all winter cleaning, servicing, even waxing up his combine so that it is the sharpest one around when the first field ripens for harvest, but if there’s no diesel in the tank, it won’t harvest a single bushel. Similarly, Israel spent her time polishing the machinery while forgetting the fuel.
The money changers were a symptom of a spiritual rot that had festered through the Temple and, indeed, many in the nation of Israel. Their religion was cold, self-interested, oppressive, and far away from God. And God would have none of it. Our Lord drove out these money changers, these peddlers of religious rip-offs for the same reason that He foretold destruction on the city: they did not attend to Him, His Word, His promises, His commands in faith. They looked elsewhere. Indeed, the practices of the Temple at that time were so wrapped up in extra-biblical instructions that many regular people were completely cut off from hearing the life-giving Word of God. And Jesus could not abide this.
There is a grave warning for us in this passage from the life of our Lord. We who claim the Lord’s Name, who call ourselves Christians, cannot fall into the disinterested, lukewarm, careless, empty, unloving, sort of religion of our ancestors at the time recorded for us today. God does not tolerate those who cut off those who suffer under the weight of sin from hearing the consoling Word of God. More still, He has no time for preachers and teachers who seek to gain wealth or worldly acclaim from their preaching and teaching.
This is not an idle threat; God destroyed His Temple and His chosen city because of such sins. Anyone who takes part in this kind of deprivation should repent and be wary.
Dear friends in Christ, this is all for a simple reason: Christ wants you to have His Word, His forgiveness, His salvation, His very own life. He wants you to come here, to His church, to be refreshed in the living water He provides. He wants you to know the comfort and consolation that come from knowing that He has died for your sins to be blotted out and raised again for your entrance into everlasting life. He wants to speak His forgiveness into your ears. It is here that he places His own body and blood into your mouths. Here is where he strengthens faith with His promises. Here he gives freely to you what the Temple could only foreshadow. He wants this so much that He gives this stern warning to churches, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and His own people: nothing is more important than faithfully hearing, teaching, and – especially – receiving His Word. It is our life, our hope, our joy, and our very salvation. Nothing should be allowed to obscure it, diminish it, or downplay it. It is the sacred charge of the Christian Church to make the Word of God, with all of its promises and blessings, be clear, unambiguous, and first. And this is all for the simple reason that He wants you to have, to know, and to rest in His salvation, His life, His mercy, purchased for you in the sacrifice of blood that God does not reject: that of His Son, Jesus.
In the holy Name of + Jesus. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] Luke 19:45-46 English Standard Version. All further quotations from the holy Scriptures are from the ESV.
[2] Luke 19:42
[3] The date of the burning of the Temple is given here as the date of the destruction of Jerusalem on the Sunday, the 9th of Av, 3830 in the Jewish calendar as recorded by Flavius Josephus. The siege of Jerusalem took place for nearly four years before the city was taken.
[4] Hosea 6:6
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