Powerpoint Pictures: Wembley Stadium; National Gallery; McDonalds Restaurant; Waitrose; Gatwick Airport; St Paul’s Cathedral

What would you expect to see happening at the following places? Wembley Stadium [people playing football]; National Gallery [people looking at paintings]; McDonalds [people eating food]; Waitrose [people buying things]; Gatwick Airport [people going on holiday or returning from holiday]; St Paul’s Cathedral [people singing, praying, listening to the Bible].

Imagine you went to a church or cathedral and instead of seeing people praying or singing, you saw lots of people buying and selling things like it was a shop.

After Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey, the next day He went to the temple (a bit like going to church) and instead of seeing people learning about God, people were buying and selling things.

Jesus was not impressed. He was angry. He overturned the tables and drove the sellers out of the temple. As He did “he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” But you have made it a den of robbers.” (Mark 11:17)

Jesus was so angry because the temple was meant to be a place where people from all nations could come and hear and learn about God and to hear about Him being the King God sent to save people from their sins. But with all this buying and selling, people could not, and Jesus doesn’t like it when people are not able to hear about Him.

Now what Jesus did made the religious leaders (the people in charge of looking after the temple) angry and they began to look for a way to kill Him. We’ll find out if they were successful or not as the story continues.