Passion Week Day 3

 Read: Matthew 26:6-13

 

On Wednesday of Passion Week, Jesus was anointed in Bethany.

Culture plays a huge part in how we view things, what we see, and what we don’t see. In China, people blow their noses right onto the ground. Most westerners think that is disgusting, but the Chinese see the ground as the place where you dispose of things you don’t want. When westerners blow their noses into a handkerchief or a tissue, people from China would think that is disgusting. They would wonder, “why would they want to keep that?”

Our cultural lenses are just as powerful when we read the Bible.

If you were a first-century Jew, and you were either present and watching what was happening or reading the account Matthew wrote, there would be nothing in this story that played by the rules, that would be considered acceptable by social norms. Nobody experiencing this or reading about it would be comfortable. Even the disciples, who by now probably thought they had Jesus and his priorities figured out, were thrown a curve. The only one comfortable here is Jesus, and he is turning everything upside down on everyone else.

Jesus was eating at Simon the Lepers' house. Lepers were considered unclean. To be in the same room as one was unacceptable; to accept hospitality from one was scandalous.

Next, a woman comes and pours expensive Nard over Jesus’ head. An adult Jewish woman would never talk to a man who wasn’t her husband or brother or father, much less touch one. Either of these two things would have had most self-respecting Jews heading for the exits.

But wait, there’s more.

Pouring expensive oil over the head was symbolic of anointing someone to be king. That act was the responsibility of a priest—a male priest—yet Jesus accepts this anointing from a common, unnamed woman.

The disciples begin to critique the extravagance saying the money should have been spent on the poor, after all Jesus always advocated for the poor. But Jesus even rebukes them.

You see, taking care of the poor falls under the 2^nd most important commandment (love you neighbor as yourself) and Jesus wants them to understand that you can’t fully fulfill the 2^nd most important commandment until you’ve fulfilled the most important commandment (love the Lord your God with all your heart).

Lest you think the woman got away without her actions being turned upside down, Jesus accepted her anointing him as king, but he described it as anointing him for burial. After all, that’s how his kingdom would come, through death and resurrection, not through might and conquest.

That is always how his kingdom always comes.

Jesus started out this week by turning the tables on the Roman authorities when he rode into Jerusalem. On Monday he turned over tables in the temple. 

Passion week is all about Jesus turning over tables.

Passion Week Tuesday

 Read: Luke 21:1-4

 

Have you noticed that Jesus noticed?

The gospels are full of Jesus paying attention to things that nobody else noticed. He noticed that the woman with the issue of blood had touched him as he was walking through a crowd, he noticed Zacchaeus watching him from a tree when no one else saw him, he noticed the man sitting by the pool of Bethesda waiting for the waters to be stirred when no one else cared.

On this particular day of Passion Week, when each successive day is marching Jesus closer to his encounter with the cross, Jesus noticed a poor widow drop a couple of pennies into the temple offering. The woman wasn’t wealthy, and she wasn’t what the rest of society would consider important, so I suspect it had been a while since anyone had noticed her at all.

I don’t think Jesus commented on her because he wanted to have a teaching moment with his disciples, I think he pointed her actions out to his disciples because he was truly touched by her faithfulness and selflessness.

The day before this Jesus had passed judgment on the temple system by throwing out the money changers, immediately after this Jesus prophesies about the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. But Jesus doesn’t critique her gift because of who she gave it to. What Jesus saw was the sincerity and sacrifice of her gift and it touched him. I wonder if it was one of the highlights of his week.

It is easy to think of Jesus watching our actions and categorizing them as good or bad, right or wrong, and putting a checkmark in the appropriate column on our ledger. But this story makes me think that Jesus is paying attention, but he’s looking for something different. I think he might by scanning back and forth looking for people who are doing something sincere, loving, and selfless, but so small no one else notices.

I think he looks for those things because those are the things that touch him.

--

Bruce

Dominus tecum

 Read Matthew 21: 12-17 

 

On Monday of Passion week, Jesus cleared the temple.

 

 I can just imagine how the disciples might have felt when they woke up that morning. Just the day before, Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem to shouts of hosanna.

 

Earlier that week the Roman Consul, Pontius Pilate, would have ridden into Jerusalem from His Headquarters in Caesarea. Pilate would have made it a point to be in the City for the Passover because of the crowds that would be there. It would be a potentially volatile time.

 

Pilate would have ridden into the city on a warhorse with a full military escort so everyone would know who was in charge. When Jesus rode in on Sunday, he humbly came into the city from the opposite direction on the colt of a donkey--everything he did was the opposite. What he did would be seen as mocking the Romans and their military authority.

 

The crowd loved it and loved him.

 

Jesus was at the zenith of his popularity. The disciples may well have been anticipating what might be coming next. Maybe they were wondering if Jesus was finally going to be taking his throne and push the Romans out. I suspect they couldn’t believe what he did next.

 

One of the acts the Messiah was expected to do was to take authority over the temple. Jesus did it in a way no one expected and few appreciated. He grabbed a whip of cords and began turning over tables. While he was running out the money changers he was shouting, “My house will be called a house of prayer, ’but you are making it 'a den of robbers.’” That’s the same thing the prophet Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 7 when he was prophesying about the destruction of the first temple twenty years after that.

 

The religious leaders couldn’t have missed that or misinterpreted that. And that’s when they committed to killing Jesus.

 

Now Jesus had alienated the Roman leaders, and the Jewish leaders both. I can just see the disciples burying their faces in their hands thinking, “and just when things were going so well.”