Tomorrow we shall be commemorating our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. It was the one hour of anything resembling triumph in His earthly life. Yet, His eyes were dimmed with tears, even though shouts of a joyous and apparently believing welcome were sounding around Him. He comes as the Savior, meek and lowly, desiring to be received for our sake rather than His own. He is weeping because of His rejection, not merely because of that rejection, but because those who reject Him know not the things which belong unto their peace.
When He entered Jerusalem He went first to the temple, and looked round on all things. He marked the prayers and thanksgivings which devout souls were offering, and the Hosannas of the children who were singing there His praises.
He marked also the traffic and noise which rose in one of its courts, which had been set apart as a place of prayer for the Gentiles, as though it did not matter if their prayers were disturbed provided the convenience of the people of Israel was carefully provided for. When He saw it all He could not but feel indignation.
He will thus come to look round on all things in the temple of our hearts; and, if we will have it so, to cast out all that is wrong, all that is ruinous ourselves, and therefore displeasing to Him.
If He finds there a lack of charity for others; if He finds there irreverence for anything that pertains to God, His Name, or His house; if He finds that the business and traffic of this world so possesses us as to disturb our prayers and to indispose us for His holy worship; if He finds that anything like greed and covetousness is growing within us also, then, again, as of old, He will be grieved.
Shall we not implore Him to drive it all out? He may need to use a scourge. It may be that only through some suffering these can be driven out, but better so than that they should not be driven out at all.
Prayer
Yea, O Lord Jesu Christ, cleanse, I pray Thee, the temple of my heart and soul, that I may be a dwelling-place for Thee for evermore. Amen.
The Cathedral Close 
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