Prayer is not a verbose and annoying monologue addressed to God (“when you make many prayers, I will not hear,” says the Lord), prayer is a dialogue, a conversation with God, in which the one who prays must be ready to listen and hear God’s will, to inwardly approach God and make His will the basis of everyday life. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ opposed the temple worship with all its vain trade, countless sacrifices (…needs, prayers, consecrations) and endless (sleepless) psalm-singing with His teaching (the Word of God, knowing the will of God), the essence of which (for catechumens) is best explained in the Sermon on the Mount. For example, the evangelist Luke describes the event of the cleansing of the temple (see Luke 19:45-47) more briefly than other evangelists (he does not describe details: the expulsion of traders, the overturning of tables…), emphasizing (if we take the context of the whole Gospel of Luke) that the Lord expels the sellers and buyers from the temple in order to cleanse it as a place for His word (more precisely, for Himself). Immediately after the expulsion of the traders and the words about prayer, it is said that the Lord “was teaching daily in the temple.” He taught, and the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people sought to destroy Him. Not to refute His teaching – they were incapable of that – but to destroy His very existence. But it was difficult to do, because “all the people were very attentive to hear Him.” Everything the Lord did, everything He taught, was an uncompromising, categorical challenge to all the established customs and notions that had been formed over centuries, to all the familiar concepts of piety and worship – from now on in Christ, a person enters into absolutely new relations with God, into a new covenant-union, where there are no intermediaries (priests, clergy) between God and man, where there is no need for temples (“The hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem (not in temples, “holy lands,” “sacred places…”). … But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” – see John 4:21-24), because every person who enters into Marriage with Christ, is baptized by the Holy Spirit, becomes a Temple of the Holy Spirit, becomes a priest (a royal priesthood), who receives the ministry of God to man (from now on, it is not man who serves God, but God in Christ serves man, “prays” (for people to repent and receive the Holy Spirit) to man (in man), and intercedes for man through the Holy Spirit).
We will note another interesting detail. The evangelist Mark says that the Lord “did not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple” (see Mark 11:16). Professors of theology, interpreting this verse, say that the Lord, supposedly, reminded the Jews of their own laws: at that time, the Jews cared little about the sanctity of the outer courts of the Temple and used them as thoroughfares, running about their business. However, everything is not so simple. The fact is that during the Passover celebration, along with worship and sacrifices, there was also a visible display of sacred vessels, which were brought out to the outer court of the Temple for this purpose. This spectacle attracted people. In the Synodal translation of the Gospel text, it says that Jesus did not allow anyone to carry any “thing” through the Temple. But in the original, it is not about “things,” the word “vessel” (σκάϕος) is used. So it is in the Slavonic translation: “and did not allow anyone to carry a vessel through the temple.” If we are talking about sacred vessels (the table of the showbread, the lampstand, the censer), which were brought out of the Temple and demonstrated to the pilgrims, then the evangelist’s remark acquires a different meaning than a simple rebuke to the careless Jews rushing about their business. By His words, which were usually accompanied by corresponding actions (as in the case of the prohibition to buy and sell: with money changers, traders, benches, tables…), Jesus did not allow people to be mesmerized (struck) by the splendor (grandeur, magnificence, glitter) of the cult, so that seeing the procession (“cross procession,” “great entrance,” “small entrance” with columns of priests, subdeacons, sacristans) with sacred vessels, they would not marvel. It is no coincidence that it is further said: “And He taught them,” and “all the people were astonished at His teaching.” They were astonished not at the vessels (mesmerized by the rich decor of the temples, gilding, paintings, carpets, choirs… and parades of priests in expensive gold-embroidered vestments, in miters with diamonds, with golden staffs, with the Gospel in a golden cover, with golden chalices, patens, rhipidia, etc.), but at the teaching. This means that in place of the cult, in which the priests made spectators out of believers, Jesus placed His teaching (Himself, His Personality, calling all people to direct, personal communication with Himself, and in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit with the Heavenly Father). The Lord, with His teaching (God is Love) and behavior (acts of Love and Mercy, standing in the Truth, to which no one and nothing can oppose or contradict), was a challenge to the entire then-existing religious system and undermined the very foundations of the cult. But, as once “the people of God” sought how to kill Christ, so throughout history Christians are persecuted and crucified by “Christians,” taught by their spiritual leaders (priests-clergy of all ranks and degrees of severity, “theologians,” Pharisees, lawyers…): back then there were “formally circumcised,” and now there are “formally baptized,” but in essence – the same pagans, Jews who (some eagerly, and others passively) await the coming of the Antichrist!