Daily Devotions

Tuesday of Holy Week: Devotion

TUESDAY OF HOLY WEEK (Matthew 21:18-25)

Tuesday is the last day of Jesus’ public ministry, and it is mostly teaching in the temple courts.  The chief priests and elders question Jesus’ authority and are stymied when Jesus tells them he will tell them where his authority is from if they can tell him if John the Baptist was from God or not.  Jesus fends off questions designed to trip him up from both the Saducees (a liberal sect of Judaism) and the Pharisees (a conservative sect of Judaism). 

Jesus teaches about the folly of rejecting him in the parable of The Two Sons, the parable of The Tenants, and the parable of The Wedding Banquet.  Jesus calls out the Pharisees’ for their hypocrisy and condemns the city’s historic rejection of the prophets God sent to call them to repentance. 

Jesus witnesses a widow giving her last coin- all she has to live on- to the Lord in her offering at the temple.  Jesus notices in her gift the love she has for the Lord and the trust she has that he will take care of her. As Jesus IS the Lord, her faith and love had to be encouraging to him, surrounded as he is in the temple by the religious elite who hate him and want to kill him.

Greeks request to see Jesus.  The desire of these Gentiles for Jesus and his gospel is also encouraging to Jesus, and he states that their coming signals that it is time for him to be glorified by his death for the salvation of all the people in the world, Jews and Gentiles.

In private, with his disciples, Jesus speaks bluntly about Judgment Day.  He tells them what signs will precede Judgments day, and in the parable of The Ten Virgins and The Talents he teaches them how to be prepared for that day and how to live as those awaiting that day.  He tells them how the Son of Man will separate the believers from the unbelievers, giving believers eternal life in heaven and consigning unbelievers to hell.

Have you ever thought of how hard it was for Jesus to teach these things on Tuesday of Holy Week?  In the story of The Tenants, he is the son who gets murdered by the evil tenants.  He tells that story knowing the day of his death is just three days away.   How his heart had to break as he warned the people of Jerusalem yet again that destruction would be their fate if they did not repent, knowing how often they had spurned his love and his prophets for centuries and how this week would not be any different. Imagine his pain as he talked about Judgment Day, knowing that, even after his suffering and death for all people, so few would care, so few would believe, and so few would end up with him in  heaven.  But as difficult as it was for him to talk about these things, he had to.  He loved his disciples, the people of Jerusalem, and even the religious leaders who wanted to kill him.  How could they repent, how could they believe and be saved, if they did not know what was at stake in trusting in him or rejecting him; if they did not understand why they needed him and why he had to die for them.  So he spoke about these things, as painful as it was for him to do that.

His Tuesday teaching is for me and you too.  It confronts us with the folly of thinking we can blow off God and live for the here and now, and get away with a faith-life that is window-dressing hypocrisy.  It reveals to us the compassionate heart of a God who does not easily give up on us, but who loves us enough to keep warning us not to go the wrong way and who loves us enough to be the way back to God and life forever in heaven with him, even when that means the way of the cross for him.

No wonder we sing hymns with titles like “What Wondrous Love Is This?”  May that wondrous love be on your mind today, and may it always be the source of peace in your heart and purpose in your life.


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Monday of Holy Week: Devotion

MONDAY OF HOLY WEEK

Jesus and his disciples have stayed overnight at Bethany, and leave in the morning to go to Jerusalem, a couple of miles away. The fig tree they come upon has leaves, which means it should also have the first crop of fruit that grows from the previous year’s shoots.  But it doesn’t.  It cannot provide breakfast for Jesus and the disciples. Jesus curses the fig tree for its lack of fruit.  That tree symbolizes the spiritual fruitlessness of the people in Jerusalem.  God has sent them prophets and they have rejected and killed them.  God has sent them his Son and they will reject and kill him. The people of Jerusalem have brought God’s judgment on themselves.  But Jesus will continue to Jerusalem and let God’s judgment for their rebellion fall on him as he suffers and dies on the cross on Good Friday. 

Jesus and his disciples arrive at the temple and here is what happens:

(Matthew 21:12-17) Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.'” 14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. 16 “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?” 17 And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

Jesus makes it clear that the temple is really his and all about him.  His actions show he has the authority to say how things should be done. He is the object of praise at the temple, as he receives praise from the children there.  He is the source of blessing, as the blind and lame find healing from him there.

The church is still to be all about Jesus today.  His word is still the authority.  We don’t change what we believe or teach as our culture changes.  We don’t want to be self-serving or manipulative in the way we operate as a congregation.  The goal is to glorify Christ and serve others.  The church is still intended to be a place where broken sinners, broken relationships, and broken lives find healing and restoration in Jesus through the gospel; especially healing from the power and condemnation of sin through forgiveness in Jesus and restoration with the Father.

It is interesting that the religious leaders are most upset, not about all the revenue they will be losing, but that Jesus is being praised as the promised Savior- God come to earth to save his people.  This is always the real issue:  Am I willing to acknowledge Jesus as the one with authority, or do I have the right to determine for myself what is true, good, and right?   How easy it is to act as if we are the authority; to question or even be dismissive of certain teachings in the Bible or to rationalize attitudes and thinking and behaviors that we have that are contrary to God’s Word.  

But that is why Jesus had come to Jerusalem: Because you and I and the entire human race needed rescuing from our foolish and selfish rebellion against the authority of God.  His mission is only beginning as he reveals who he is there in the temple on Monday.  He is headed for the cross of Good Friday to provide us with the forgiveness we all need, and turn our hearts from seeking what we want for our self-gratification to seeking what he wants for his glory.

Praise him for such amazing mercy and grace today!   Seek that grace not only for the forgiveness you need, but for the will to live for his glory in genuine thankfulness!


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Holy Week Worship Schedule


Manudy Thursday: 7pm (with Holy Communion)
Good Friday: Noon and 7pm
Easter Sunday: 8:00, 9:15, 10:30am


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