Sorry it has taken me till near on midday to get a lent reflection for you today. The honest truth is that I was trying to find some deep way of conveying the significance of what today centers around in the lent calendar… but I haven’t been able to.
The focus of today, the day after Palm Sunday, is the first major act undertaken by Jesus after his heralded entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey. Following his entrance into Jerusalem, the next thing we hear is that Jesus has gone into the Temple and is driving out the money lenders from the court of the Gentiles. He’s angry because the activities of these people are turning this place of prayer, this place where people can access God, a den of trade. They are holding people back from connecting with the Father.
I don’t have any deep way of drawing you into reflection on the matter, but I have spent my time wondering about this event between two others. The first is the event of Palm Sunday – the people welcoming their Messiah and probably imagining that this is the man who will overthrow the Roman Empire and once again make earthly Israel a glorious nation. The second comes later, when these same people, after Jesus is captured and when offered a choice between having Jesus freed, or the violent Bar Abba (otherwise known as Barabbas… more on this name and this man closer to the time), the cry for the crucifixion of the man they once hailed as their Messiah. This shift happened in a space of one week – from having the people’s adoration to being reviled.
What place did the event in the Temple play in that shift? Did the people look upon this as an affront? What was he doing attacking the practice within the Temple rather than the Roman guards who roamed the city? Why should Jesus care so much about the court of the Gentiles? They were the occupiers… did this event feed the shift from adoration to disgust? I don’t know… but hindsight certainly makes for some fascinating wonderings… maybe even “deep” wonderings.
All too often I have seen people go from adoration of God when they first grasp hold of the story of scripture, only to see that go to disgust when they think God has done nothing for them. Oh how the stories of scripture reflect our human nature far too often. Jesus did not fulfil the expectations of the people and their expectation of a kingdom. What he was pointing to was far bigger and far deeper… but they could not see it. What are we missing as we think about what it means to follow Jesus? Where are our blind spots? As with the people who adored Jesus and then later cried out for his death, what cultural preconceptions stop us from seeing the bigger picture?
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