This week I found myself attending the open house for the Draper Temple. It reminded me of a story from High School. During my senior year we studied British literature. Included in this category was the King James Version of the Bible. We read the story in John where Jesus cast out the people who were selling things within the walls of the Temple. John records that Jesus “found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;” (John 2:14-15). One girl thought this was strange because doves were a representation of peace. I thought this was strange that people would miss the bigger point that this story is trying to make.
The problem wasn’t that the people were selling “doves,” it was that they had taken a holy thing and desecrated it by making it a “den of thieves” (see Matthew 21:13). By changing the focus from the sacred ordinances to making money, the Temple had lost its holiness. Jesus was righteously indignant about His house being turned into a common exchange market. We too need to remember that the house of the Lord is a holy place and it should be treated as such. As I walked through the Draper Temple, it reminded me of just how blessed we are to have these holy sanctuaries on the earth today where we can feel the presence of the Lord in His house, away from all the noise and bustle that the world has created. I hope that we will always remember that the Temple is a holy place and treat it with the respect and reverence that it deserves as the house of the Lord.
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