Summary of “Righteous Flame: Love Fierce and Tender, Righteous to the Tomb”

The poem reflects on Jesus’ cleansing of the temple—His righteous anger as He overturns tables and drives out the money changers—not as sin, but as an expression of deep, holy love for His Father’s house and for true worship.

It portrays Christ’s zeal as a blazing flame: fierce in confronting corruption and hypocrisy, yet always rooted in love. The same hands that wielded a whip in the temple tenderly healed the sick, blessed children, and forgave sinners.

The poem emphasizes that genuine biblical love is not weak or compromising. It roars against injustice, weeps over sin, and boldly overturns what harms God’s people and His glory—yet it remains tender, protective, and redemptive.

In the end, this flame of righteous zeal is revealed to be love itself: fierce enough to confront evil, tender enough to embrace the broken, and perfectly righteous—all the way to the cross and the tomb, where God’s justice and mercy meet in ultimate victory.

The poem calls believers to love in the same way: with tables overturned when truth demands it, with zeal that burns without sinning, following Christ’s example of holy, unflinching, sacrificial love.

In the temple courts, the doves cry out,
Cages clacked like coins in greedy palms;
The house of prayer, a marketplace of doubt,
Where profit choked the incense and the psalms.

He came—not with the whisper of a dove,
But with the thunder of a heart on fire;
A cord of cords, woven firm in love,
Became the whip of holy, cleansing ire.

Tables crashed like idols to the floor,
Coins spun wild, a scatter of false kings;
“Take these away! My Father’s house restore!”
His voice a blade that pierced the unholy things.

Yet see: the same hands fierce to overthrow
Had touched the leper, blessed the child, forgone
All vengeance for the broken hearts below—
Wrath and mercy from one heart were drawn.

Love is no timid guest that fears the storm;
It weeps, it roars, it drives the thieves away.
It overturns what harms, yet keeps us warm
Within the shelter of its boundless day.

So let us love with tables overturned,
With zeal that burns yet does not sin consume;
For Christ has shown that flame is truly love—
Fierce, tender, righteous all the way to the tomb.