Fierce Jesus

Christ Cleansing the Temple, by Bernardino Mei (1655)

I've been mulling over this one for a while:

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as 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 11:15-17

We believers love to love all kinds of pictures of Jesus: Jesus the shepherd, Jesus the healer, Jesus the teacher, Jesus the friend of children, Jesus the forgiver. Some people even like to picture Jesus the sufferer; after all, there are paintings of Jesus the sufferer in a hundred thousand churches.

But in this story we see Jesus the fierce champion, the bouncer of skanky swindlers in the temple courts, the wielder of a whip, the one who with gritted teeth berates those who desecrate God's house, the man who throws tables aside and glares down anyone who tries to carry their merchandise out with them. A fierce Jesus? Could it be?

It could.

Jesus was also fierce in his defense of the woman who had been caught in adultery. He was fierce in the way he nailed people who looked good and religious on the outside, but who were nit-picking, controlling, self-righteous critics on the inside. He was fierce towards those who took advantage of the poor, the weak, the defenseless. He wasn't afraid to call a spade, a spade, when it came to outing people who pulled others down into spiritual bankruptcy with them. Tie them to a rock and throw them into the sea, he said.

"Fierce" is not so winsome? Don't you believe it for a moment. Anyone who has needed a champion, a defender, a protector, a righteous judge who will storm in to their aid, ... anyone who has felt vulnerable and defenseless against power and violence in their time of need ... that's the kind of person who loves a fierce Jesus. After he threw the swindlers and moneychangers out of the temple, the courts rang with the voices of the little children, with the hosannas of people who had found a savior, of people who wanted to learn what Jesus had to teach them.  For them, the fierce Jesus was a relief, a comfort, a savior from the awfulness of being one down. Or two down, or a hundred.

The fierce Jesus. The Jesus of flashing eyes, steel-hard voice, no-nonsense commands that must be obeyed. We may not often think or speak of Him that way. But perhaps we should.