Passion Tuesday

How sad it is to me that human nature has not changed a great deal in two thousand years. I read the accounts of your Son.

I see him overturn the tables in the temple. I see him reaching out his hand in your temple and healing the blind and the lame—making people whole. Making people alive again. Making people see again. He was an exact representation of Jehovah-rapha with all the signs and wonders to demonstrate the truth of it. And yet, Father, the religious people dismissed Jesus because they felt their authority was being threatened. The control they had in the religious boxes was knocked over by a carpenter boy from Galilee. This frightened them because this revealed the vanity and emptiness inside.

Father, they questioned your Son’s authority. And we still do today. We ask for his credentials; when he moves in our lives and it doesn’t fit our agenda we question him. When he pushes back the walls of our boxes we question him.

Father, we are in the midst of your mighty hand moving among your people. Instead of lifting our hands in praise and opening our lips in worship as the children shouted in the temple we are questioning you. Asking you what right you have, what authority do you have? We, too, are indignant.

OH Father, the religious rulers and leaders were so indignant about what your Son was doing. They felt so threatened by him. By his teaching. And they knew he had authority; they recognized it, but to acknowledge it they would be accountable to it. And they did not want to be accountable.

They knew.

Father, we know.

And often we act indignant. We behave religiously. We come to the temple blind and lame. We come insecure. We come fearful. And you want to heal us, but we are too busy attempting to look for a way to kill you. To shut down your voice.

Father, forgive us. Please forgive us.  

Amen.