What other portrait of our Lord, Jesus, so rattles the mind as the panorama of His assault upon the temple merchants? Humility, servitude, and a manner of restraint from all but the necessary (even if as according to divine, not human, precepts...) characterize so much of what we see recorded of His ways among us. Like a lamb led to slaughter, even, as Isaiah foretold--horrific though the thought, but still...apt.
So, to have witness of such a bold and unexpected show of indignation...
...all the more known, then, as ruled by passions unfathomable to those even nearest Him.
The care with which He constructed the tool, though, doesn't give indication of impulsivity. Nor of any lack of restraint. Meticulous. Diligently prepared. Mayhap reluctantly undertaken, but nonetheless a necessary statement, violent though it might have seemed to those taken wholly unawares.
I wonder if He seemed a madman, raging, to them. I can't help but think that the terror which struck those who even saw Him approaching was like enough to completely shock their minds into utter silence, cowed and trembling, only to flee the wrath evident.
