To Read: Mark 12:38-43
Today is Tenebrae Friday, a day of shadows and darkness where we remember that our God died. Today we make much of the trials of Jesus before the Chief Priests, the Jewish governor of Galilee and the Roman governor of Judea. We talk a lot about the accusations against Jesus and how that all led to the horrible moment when Jesus spoke the final words, “it is finished” and breathed his last. We do this in various ways. Some of us attend a traditional candlelight service. Others pray through the stations of the cross. Others watch various film depictions of the event like the Passion of the Christ or the Jesus film. Still others read the Passion narratives in the four gospels, taking special note of the 7 last words Jesus spoke while on the cross. The truly super spiritual do all of the above!
But no matter how we commemorate Good Friday, we are prone to realize again that the real trial at the heart of the crucifixion was not Jesus’ but ours. All of humanity was put on trial before the throne of God. After all the God who loves us, who created us, whose very presence sustains our being, pitched his tent and camped out among us and we killed him for it.
My devotional reflections this week have been following Mark 12 where Jesus is repeatedly questioned by various members of the Jewish scholarly elite during the last week of his life. Jesus successfully parried attacks by the Chief Priests, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and one over confident teacher of the law. These various tests serve as a precursor to his upcoming trial. Even though they had yet to arrest Jesus under the cover of darkness and serve up a mock trial to reaffirm their own prejudices, they publicly tested Jesus in the hopes that the surrounding crowds would be the jury and judge.
It didn’t work. In fact, after Jesus successfully answered their questions and avoided the traps they had set, he turned the attack on them. In chapter 12, verse 38 Jesus says, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”
Right after that he contrasts them with a very poor widow who offered two tiny pennies to the temple system. Her offering, Jesus says, is worth more than all the others.
This image of the humble widow becomes a forerunner to the image of the crucified God. The arrogant chief priests and teachers of the law respond to the presence of Christ by trying to trick and trap. The widow responds by giving all she has. It is her two mites that become the image of true humanity, a humanity formed and shaped and called to the image of the sacrificial and self giving God.
Days later, Jesus as fully God and fully human magnifies the image of the widow for us as he hangs on the cross. This image of sacrificial and self giving love is who we are supposed to be. Such an image shames the know it alls and the proud and the arrogant and the powerful. The cross is a verdict on our own ability to save ourselves by pretending to be more than we are. It is a sentence of “guilty” for those who “walk around in fancy clothes and soak up the praises bestowed upon them while sitting in the most important seats in public gatherings but who devour widows’ homes.”
And it is a call to repent from our arrogance and pride and embrace the sacrificial giving of a poor widow. Only by picking up our own crosses of shame and following Jesus can we arrive at a Resurrected morning.
Heavenly father, restore unto us the joy of our salvation as we gaze upon your self giving cross.
Go-Before Grace 