After Palm Sunday, on Monday, Jesus - having spent the night outside the city, re-enters Jerusalem, goes to the temple, and drives out the moneychangers and people who were selling animals for sacrifices. He overturns tables, and takes a whip, and uses it to clean out the temple. (See Mark 11:15-18.)

It's a powerful story. This is a different side of Jesus's personality than the gentle healer or patient teacher in so many stories.

On the face of it, it doesn't seem all that unreasonable for there to be moneychangers in the temple - a little like the bureaux de change at airports. Too, it seems convenient to have people there selling animals to those who need them for the prescribed sacrificial offerings.

So, what's the story about? Why this zealous scourging?

Because... the moneychangers and sellers of animals represent evil loves in our lives that cloak themselves in external piety. They have to be driven out, unmasked, and scourged. See Apocalypse Explained 410[8].

The evils are bad. The cloaking adds an extra layer of corruption that's even more objectionable. If you pretend that you're good, in order to enrich yourself, or empower yourself in some way -- that's a really insidious thing. It's terrible when people fake being good and then take advantage of their targeted victims, in fraud, or selling bad products, or stealing, or trafficking.

The temple was supposed to be a holy place of worship. On an external level, it had been infested by people who were faking piety, and taking advantage of the people who were actually pious, coming to worship there. It's a lot like the frauds who trafficked in fake Christian relics - splinters of the true cross, and the like, or more modern "Christian" televangelists who have - in some cases - turned out to have feet of clay.

When we see those behaviors uncloaked today, we can recognize them as being things that need to be scourged. But... what are the moneychangers in our own lives? Do we ever pretend to be pious so we can advance some evil love?

This is not an easy question. How well, and how fairly, do we know our own minds? One thing is that we have to understand the difference between simulation and hypocrisy -- see this article: Hypocrisy or Simulating.

But... when we've experienced Palm Sunday stages in our minds, when we're feeling inspired and filled with confidence in the Lord, it's a good day to go scourge our inner temple -- to see what surface pieties are there cloaking stealthy loves of evil -- and to overturn them and drive them out.

430. 'A little one' or little child in the Word means innocence, and also charity, for true innocence does not exist without charity, nor true charity without innocence. There are three degrees of innocence, which are distinguished in the Word as sucklings, infants, and little children. And because true innocence cannot exist without true love and charity these same three, sucklings, infants, and little children, also mean three degrees of love, which are the tender love which is like that of a suckling for mother or nursemaid; the love which is like that of an infant for parents; and charity which is like a little child's attitude towards its teacher; as in Isaiah,

The wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child will lead them. Isaiah 11:6.

Here 'lamb', 'kid', and 'calf' stand for the three degrees of innocence and of love, 'wolf', 'leopard', and 'young lion' for their opposites. 'A little child' stands for charity.

[2] In Jeremiah,

You commit great evil against your own souls by cutting off from you man (vir) and wife, infant and suckling from the midst of Judah, not leaving you a remnant. Jeremiah 44:7.

'Man and wife' stands for things connected with the understanding of truth and with the will for good. 'Infant and suckling' stands for the initial degrees of love. That 'infant' and 'little child' mean innocence and charity is quite clear from the Lord's words in Luke,

They brought infants to Jesus that He might touch them. He said, Let the little ones come to Me and do not hinder them, for of such is the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it. Luke 18:15-17.

Being innocence itself and Love itself the Lord Himself is called a Little One or Little Child in Isaiah 9:6, where He is also referred to as Wonderful, Counsellor, God, the Mighty One, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.