Tuesday of Holy Week

(Illustation: detail of Folio 29r (the healing of Bartimaeus) from the Sinope Gospels, 6th century)

Today marks the 400th entry in the First UMC blog.

The Tuesday of Holy Week is the day when the famous incident between Jesus and Pharisees is thought to have taken place. This was when the authorities tried to trap Jesus into making a blasphemous, or, anti-god remark. This day is important also on another count. Jesus discoursed to his disciples on the Mount of Olives about the destruction of Jerusalem and the signs of the last day.

John 12:37-38
Although Jesus had performed so many signs before the people, they did not believe in him. This was to fulfill the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah: "Lord, who has believed our message, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"

Nevertheless many, even of the authorities, believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God.

Prayer for Holy Tuesday
How many Sundays have we sung, "... as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end"? At the beginning, Jesus, your parents offered doves bought in the temple as a sign of their devotion and they dedicated you to God. It was their prayer. Now doves are the signal of trafficking in holy things for selfish gain. Faith is turned into a business.

Devotion becomes the occasion for prostitution and the temple has become a spiritual brothel. Is it because you have become an adult — the anointed One with God in your eyes and you shine like the light in God's house?

You say, "My house."
You say, "My house shall be."
You say, "My house shall be called."
You say, "My house shall be called a house of prayer."
You say, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations."
You say, "but you ... but you have made it a den of robbers."

The "but" speaks truth leading to doom. And you say it anyway. Like some fierce force of reckoning the confrontation comes. Like some strange mercy, you upset our grotesque compromise with self, our easy complicity with turning the holy to whoring, our complacency about marketing the means of grace.

Do the doves go free on this day when you become the target of the lynch mob? What does it mean for us to follow you, today? Let your courage and honesty live in us this Holy Tuesday. Let your passion for the heart of prayer stir in us this Holy Tuesday. Let your yearning for the prayer of all nations move us beyond our narrow nationalisms of me and mine, of cashing in on others poverty and misery, of ...

Let your will to cleanse away the merchandizing of salvation leave in us only a simple silence, a centered stillness, an eternal moment of peace. Live in your temple, Jesus, this Holy Tuesday and let the doves go free. Live in a time of silence, even if only for a minute. Amen.

Copyright © 2005 The General Board of Discipleship.