Knox Holy Week 2020 Devotional - Day #2: Monday
Matthew 21:12-17
“Jesus entered the temple courts 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. “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.’” The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
“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, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”
And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.”
Throughout his life on earth, Jesus centred on the people society ignored, even rejected—children, women, the poor, the sick, the foreigner. Once Jesus entered Jerusalem, preaching at the temple, he drove out the rich sellers who had staked space there. In their place Jesus drew in the lame and the blind, the disabled people no one would listen to or honour. Jesus inspired children to raucously declare truth that so many “wiser” adults were too blinded by tradition and pride to see. “Hosanna to the Son of David” shouted the young, unlearned, innocent, snotty-nosed, rowdy children.
In this time of having to pivot to an almost exclusively online or by-phone way of doing church I’ve had to confront the ways in which I’ve ignored voices that Jesus centres. Like the voice of our elderly shut-ins who can’t make it to church, who are so glad for the live stream on Sundays so they can participate in corporate worship. They’ve experienced social distancing for years, their needs have always mattered to God and now their needs are serving to teach us how to worship together even at a distance.
I’ve also seen how having a regular children’s moment in the middle of our main worship service has drawn my own children more deeply into corporate worship, and all the adults are just as deeply blessed by simple stories that make us laugh and think. Perhaps the way we teach kids is actually good soul-food for all ages. The things that reveal the Kingdom to the hearts of children are what we all need. The messy, loudness of the children shouting truth glorified Jesus back then and continues to, just like the spunky jingle of our kids' moment and the silly joy of Pr. Natasha’s sock puppets glorify God. They don’t belong in a separate room just for kids, they belong in the middle of the temple.
Another voice I’m learning from right now is the disabled community, who have been navigating online tools for community building for a long time and are so good at making those online spaces holy and sacred. Barriers to in-person gatherings are not new to the disabled community and we have so much to learn from them about not looking down on, or not feeling like “this is second best” to online gatherings. The Spirit moves just as powerfully on the Youtube stream and Zoom calls, and so much of our ability to experience that is our heart posture. Do we go into online gatherings expectant and hopeful - listening!
PRAYER PROMPTS
Pray for every church and Christian group meeting virtually in this season, for the Spirit to move powerfully through these gatherings and for stable internet connections.
Pray for all those who are not able to connect virtually or by phone.
Ask God to reveal to you any ways you have been closed off from receiving the full gift of online gatherings. Confess these to God and ask for new openness, new ears to hear and new eyes to see.
