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.
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