Jesus drove the buyers and sellers out of the Temple in a great symbolic act. The last prophet of the Old Testament, Malachi declared: "The Lord you are seeking will suddenly enter his Temple" [Malachi 3:1]. On several occasions people wondered whether or not Jesus was "the one to come".

According to John's presentation, Jesus cleansed the Temple on his first visit to Jerusalem towards the beginning of his public life, whereas the Synoptics record this incident towards the end of Jesus' life when he went to Jerusalem to die. Thus we do not know exactly when the incident occurred, and there are arguments on either side. John's version has the advantage of emphasizing the word "suddenly" in Malachi's prophecy. Jesus reminded us that we do not know the day or the hour when the Son of Man will return or when we will die. In the same way, the Jews had no way of telling when the Messiah would come.

Jesus' symbolic act is also a parable, teaching us that God's inscrutable ways are not our ways. We can only wait in patient hope for God's coming into our lives with salvific and renewing grace.