Turf Wars

But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw ... they were indignant.

Matthew 21:15

To Jesus, the gig was up.  The temple courts was the place where Gentiles could go to worship the God of the Jews - the only real God.  It was designated to be the place where all nations could go to pray.  (Isaiah 56:7)  But instead, the priests and teachers had allowed it to be something akin to a gift shop in a 911 museum of sorts, where people could go to exchange foreign for local currency and then buy sacrifices on the cheap - turning a profit in over the sacred.  At face value, it was not quite extortion.  But it was indeed holding the act of worship to God in full contempt.  And it smacked of Eli, Hophni and Phineas at Shiloh where the tabernacle. (Read 1 Samuel chapters 2, and 4)

So when the chief priests and teachers got indignant over a) his healing the blind and lame, b) over the kids enjoying this new celebrity in their midst, and c) over driving out the profiteering in the temple, the straw had broken the camels' backs and they just had to express their indignation.  It was enough that he challenged their system of traditions, theologies and hierarchies.  It was enough that he was showing them up in the performance of their care for the people.  But now He was encroaching on their home base - the temple.  As if it was theirs in the first place.

Indeed, they had lost sight of the intent of this dear place.  But now the time for them to understand had come.  And they were either going to repent and fall in line or they were going to draw the line and sacrifice the Lamb for the sake of every soul.

The final battle had begun, and the children were at stake in the very heart of it all.