Holy Week: Monday
Holy Week is about recognizing the uncommon in the midst of our regular lives. As we get closer to Easter Sunday, let us make this week one where we allow the story of God to bleed into our experiences. There is nothing more regular than eating. So we encourage you to do the daily devotionals during a meal time where the food that you eat can compliment the theme of each day of Holy Week.
Jesus’ life revolved around hospitality. He was often welcomed into people’s homes. In these special, holy moments, people shared space, life, and meals with Jesus the Lord. May we do the same, and allow the regular moments in our lives to be encounters with Jesus as we near Easter Sunday.
Monday: “The Lord’s House”
Matthew 21:12-17
Jesus Cleanses the Temple12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,
“‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise’?”17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.
Devotional
Salt is one of those ingredients that is often recognized when it is missing. There’s a reason why most tables in restaurants have salt on them and every household regularly buys it. Salt during the time of Jesus was often used as a preservative because it decreased the amount of bacteria in food. If certain bacteria is left on food, it eventually will begin to deteriorate.
As Jesus walks into the temple in Jerusalem on Monday of Holy Week, he calls out a major issue with those who run the operations of the temple. They are hurting the poor, cheating people who have come to worship God. In other words, some within the temple administration were treating God’s house (the temple) like it was their house. But Jesus behaves like salt in this moment. He overturns the tables of the money changers and declares to them, “It is written ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are turning it into a den of robbers.” Like salt gets rid of bacteria, Jesus gets rid of injustice. On this Monday of Holy Week, let us praise God for being the one who came to set all things right.
“Expulsion of the Merchants” Monreale Cathedral, Palermo, Sicily, Italy
Food: Savory
Have something today in your meal that is savory or can have salt added to it. As you eat the salted food, recall to yourself or those around you of an area in life that was wrong that God made right. This could be freeing you from addiction, or restoring a broken relationship. This could be as simple as a moment where you felt the Spirit convicting you to apologize and repent. Whatever it may be, take time to recall how God has made wrongs right in your personal life.