A Holy Monday reflection

More than 3,200 “No Kings” rallies were held Saturday across the US. Event organizers estimate more than eight million people attended protests against President Donald Trump’s actions and policies. The name reportedly comes from organizers’ belief that Mr. Trump is acting like a monarch rather than the leader of a democracy.

Whether you joined the protests, are strongly opposed to them, or wish I would write about something else, the demonstrations illustrate this fact about America: our First Amendment “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances” is alive and well.

Imagine similar rallies being held in Iran, Cuba, or China. Actually, you don’t have to use your imagination: When citizens tried in recent years to protest their government publicly in these countries, they were massacred by the thousands. On my trips to Cuba and China, I was cautioned not to speak against the government even in private conversations due to the likelihood that paid informants would be listening. I was also warned that my hotel room was likely bugged and that what I said, even there, was being monitored by the authorities.

By contrast, America is the only nation “founded on a creed,” as G. K. Chesterton observed, the declaration that “all men are created equal.” This conviction fuels and is fueled by an ardent commitment to individualism, the belief that we flourish best when we are most free to think and act as we wish.

But this passion for personhood and unhindered freedom comes at a cost.

“Our God is a consuming fire”

Today is Monday of Holy Week. On this day, Jesus “entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons” (Mark 11:15). He explained that the temple was to be a “house of prayer for all the nations,” but they have “made it a den of robbers” (v. 17).

At the temple, foreign coins were changed into the required local currency, large denominations were converted into smaller coins, money was stored, and those who came to sacrifice were required to pay a tribute of “half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary” (Exodus 30:13). For each of these functions, the “money-changers” were charging exorbitant rates. Those who came to the temple had no other option, so they had to pay them.

In addition, animals used for sacrifice had to be “without blemish” (cf. Exodus 12:5). As a result, most people purchased such animals at the temple, where they could be assured that they qualified for sacrificial purposes, but those selling them were charging unfair prices for them.

Our Lord’s response does not call to mind the “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” with whom we are familiar and comfortable. This is the living Lord to whom we are commanded to offer “acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28–29).

“The Lord disciplines the one he loves”

I was reading in the psalms recently and was struck by David’s prayer: “Unite my heart to fear your name” (Psalm 86:11). Unite my heart could be translated, “Make me one in essence and identity.” As the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard famously observed, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.”

The “one thing” that best unifies and organizes our lives is the unconditional commitment to “fear [God’s] name.” The Hebrew word translated fear means to tremble, to be alarmed, to be terrified by. It denotes a deep sense of dread. We find it in Scripture when we find someone who meets God and truly understands who he is:

• When Isaiah saw the God who is “holy, holy, holy,” he cried out, “Woe is me! For I am lost” (Isaiah 6:3, 5).
• When Simon Peter witnessed Jesus’ omnipotence, “he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord’” (Luke 5:8).
• When John met the exalted Christ on Patmos, he “fell at his feet as though dead” (Revelation 1:17).

Christians do not have to fear hell, for we receive eternal life in the moment of our salvation as the children of God (John 1:12; 3:16). But we do have to fear the judgment of God against our sin, in this life and in the life to come (2 Corinthians 5:10). Our sin grieves the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30) and causes us to forfeit God’s best in this world and in eternity (1 Corinthians 3:15). Because “the Lord disciplines the one he loves” (Hebrews 12:6; cf. Proverbs 3:11–12; Revelation 3:19), he deals with us as gently as he can or as harshly as he must.

But make no mistake: he deals with us.

“I will give them one heart”

When we truly fear God’s judgment against our sin, we respond with obedience that positions us to experience God’s best: “The friendship of the Lᴏʀᴅ is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant” (Psalm 25:14). This is the antidote to the fallen heart by which “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15).

We can measure the degree to which we fear God by the degree to which we fear sin: “The fear of the Lᴏʀᴅ is hatred of evil” (Proverbs 8:13). With this result: “The fear of the Lᴏʀᴅ is a fountain of life, that one may turn away from the snares of death” (Proverbs 14:27). Said positively: “The fear of the Lᴏʀᴅ leads to life, and whoever it has it rests satisfied” (Proverbs 19:23).

This is why the Lord said of his people, “I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them” (Jeremiah 32:39). He wants to do the same for us all: “I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them . . . that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them” (Ezekiel 11:19–20).

When God unites our hearts to fear his name, we become changed people who change the world: “The church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied” (Acts 9:31).

So, on this Holy Monday, let us ask the Lord to show us the “moneychangers” in our “temple” and confess every sin that comes to mind. And let us make this our fervent prayer, today and every day: “Unite my heart to fear your name.”

These seven words will change the world, one soul at a time.

Quote for the day:

“The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.” —Oswald Chambers

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