Beliefs

+NT Wright has observed that the critical moment in the movement from ministry to passion is the incident we hear in the Gospel. Jesus drives the sellers and brokers from the temple.
In our day, we tend to read that as a teaching about greed or the failure of institutions, or perhaps the falure of ritual without relationship. And all of those are arguably present in the texts. But in first century Palestine, they saw it differently -- as a claim of authority. And Jesus treats it that way.
The temple authorities demand to know by what authority, under what sign, Jesus has the right to act as he did. He responds with the claim that he can rebuild "this temple" in three days.
So, Jesus understood at that moment, his purpose was to claim the authority to be messiah. And the Romans, as well as the Jewish authorities reacted by killing him. His interruption of the sacrificial system was an act reserved for God. Taking that power into his own hands laid claim to the kingship, the messiah's relationship with the father, and the power to admit or not, those outside the system into the new Israel.
He knew, I think it is clear, exactly how the entrenched interests of the world would respond. They did respond, and his resurrection is his ultimate claim of triumph over them.
If he was to be messiah as he, Isaiah and we understand it, he had to make that claim, and he had to be that person. No fort, no army as he observed in his examination, no battles. The claim of authority, the execution for it, and the ressurection beyond it: these are the climactic completion of his ministry.
FWIW
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