While reading this chapter, 3 things stood out to me, verses 8, 12, and 28-32.
The first, verse 8, the multitudes lined the path Jesus would travel with their clothes and branches from trees etc. They were preparing for Him through their actions and behaviors. They didn’t fear what anybody else was going to think of what they were doing – or maybe they did some, but their love for their Savior and their desire to show Him that love, was greater than that fear. We cannot fear man more than we love God.
The second, verse 12, is when Jesus overturns the tables in the temple and makes all of the vendors leave. There are not many scriptures that allow for us to imagine an angry Christ. And even in this one, I still anticipate that His emotional state was not out of control, but was just the opposite, focused and intentional. In that moment, Jesus is sending a very clear and very loud message of the need to have His Father’s house cleansed and reverenced in preparation of bigger things to come. I can’t help but feel this is exactly what President Nelson is doing right now in leading the church. He is stepping things up, raising the bar. And it’s not for no uncertain reason, no, it is in preparation for bigger things to come. We are being weeded out. Not that everyone can’t make it, there is room plenty for us all, but we are being asked to live, operate and teach at a higher law, for our hearts to become more like our Savior’s. This will be difficult for so many of us who are used to coasting, coasting won’t cut it any longer. We MUST be intentional. Our hearts MUST change and turn to our Savior. We MUST increase and grow. We aren’t being asked to do more, but we are being asked to become more. It’s huge!
The third thing that stood out to me in verses 28-32 was this parable that Jesus asks the Chief Priests, “But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise, and he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not.
So Jesus asks the chief priests, which of them actually did what the father asked. They responded, the first. Then Jesus tells them that the sinners of their area will get to enter into the kingdom of God before them because, even though they were doing bad things, when they learned righteousness from John the Baptist, they repented and were converted and changed their behaviors to doing good things. Jesus continues to explain in verse 32, “For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him.
This is a parable for those of us who KNOW but refuse to ACT. Again, coming back to that higher law … we are being asked to BECOME.
It’s scary. At least to me it is. I am never certain that I do enough or that I am enough. But I do know this – I know who God is. I know that I love Him and I know that He knows that too, that He knows my heart. And His love is kind and gentle and merciful. And His love is just. And in the end, all is well. I believe in that.
