Jesus Tears the Temple Apart on His Way to the Cross

“Rage rooms" and "smash rooms” really exist. And they are exactly what the name suggests: rooms where you are allowed to completely let loose. Armed with a hammer, bat, or whatever else you like, you can smash all kinds of things—glassware, old appliances, pottery, even items you bring yourself just to shatter into pieces.

It is easy to see why this phenomenon is so popular. Who would not want to release pent-up frustration or even anger in a place where, supposedly, no real harm is done?

In season 5 of The Chosen, Jesus almost seems to treat the temple courts like a Rage Room. He storms onto the square, raises His voice, overturns tables filled with merchandise, and even uses a whip to drive people out and cause even more destruction.

When we read this story in the Bible (see Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-18 and John 2:13-16), many of us picture a furious Jesus, overwhelmed by anger, tearing the temple courts apart. The Bible tells us that Jesus was angry that the temple courts were not being used how they were intended to as a house of prayer.

The Chosen highlights an important detail we often overlook, one that changes everything: Jesus first makes a whip out of cords (see John 2:15). He does not grab one from a shelf or take it from a table. He sits down and makes it. Almost calmly. Deliberately.

That detail clashes with the image of blind rage. A person overwhelmed by emotion does not patiently weave a whip. This suggests that Jesus’ anger was not a sudden outburst, but a conscious decision.

His anger is real. Intense, even. But not uncontrolled.

It is anger born out of love. Out of deep involvement. Out of grief over what has become of the place meant to be a house of prayer. Through the very act of overturning and breaking things, Jesus is saying, “This breaks My heart.”

The tables are not overturned for the sake of destruction itself. They are overturned to uncover something hidden.

Everything seems fine. The temple courts are full of activity, buzzing with trade and conversation. Yet God Himself has faded into the background: the temple is not being used as a place to worship Him anymore. And that is what Jesus cannot bear. His Father’s house has become a marketplace where people try to buy relief for their worries with money.

Jesus’ anger flows from His deep love for His Father’s house. His disciples remembered what is written in Scripture: “Zeal for Your house will consume me” (John 2:17).

But it was not only that. His anger also flows from His love for us. From concern for us. Because we are so easily distracted by noise and everything that pulls our attention away. And there, in the temple courts, surrounded by the sounds of trade, it becomes too much.

At this moment, Jesus, the Son of God, still holds the whip Himself. That alone is powerful. But what is even more powerful is that in just a few days, on what we call Good Friday, He will let go of it.

We will see that unfold in The Chosen season 6.

Then Jesus Himself will receive the blows of the whip, as all the bitter, poisonous, suffocating anger of the world across all time is poured out on Him.

You and I might go to something like a Rage Room to deal with our anger. But does that truly solve anything? Or does it only offer momentary relief?

Both in the Bible and in The Chosen, Jesus shows that anger is safer in His hands than in anyone else’s.

So the next time you feel the urge to smash everything in sight, do not reach for a bat. Instead, break yourself down by kneeling and praying, and placing your anger in Jesus' hands. Where it is safe.