Monday of Holy Week

This week I will be collaborating with my husband, Derek (pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Akron), to offer daily evotionals that the church will send out by email. I will also post them here. If you would like to receive the emails, please send a request to fppchurch@gmail.com.

Blessings to you on this holiest of weeks.

Amy

Monday:

Matthew 21:12-17

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’; but you are making it a den of robbers.” The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise for yourself’?” He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

Jesus Cleansing the Temple by Jeffrey Weston

On Palm Sunday we began Holy Week by celebrating Jesus as our King. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus' entry into Jerusalem is immediately followed by the so-called cleansing of the temple. When Jesus arrives at the temple, his behavior seems a bit out of character. He "drives out" those who were buying and selling goods, "overturning the tables" of those changing money and selling doves to pilgrims for their sacrifices. After this, he cured the blind and lame; people who lived on the margins of the community, cast aside because their disabilities were falsely attributed to their sin.

The lesson for us is clear: Jesus is as passionate as he is compassionate! He isn't just a humble king, he is also a mighty judge, doing what is necessary -- even expressing his anger productively -- to ensure that God's love is available to everyone, and not just the ones who can afford to buy it. In today's lectionary passage from Isaiah we are reminded that God's chosen one "will bring forth justice to the nations" (Isaiah 42:1-9). As we follow Jesus to the cross this week, may we receive his passionate attempts to cleanse us from self-serving habits that harm others and keep them from knowing God's love.