BibleProject | One Story That Leads to JesusSample

Atop the temple mount stands the glorious, glimmering building meant to be filled with God’s Spirit and to be served by those who are “clothed in salvation and … rejoice in goodness” (2 Chron. 6:41).

Instead, today’s reading opens on an impoverished widow giving “everything she has to live on” (Luke 21:4). In that verse, Luke uses the Greek bios for “live.” That means this woman’s two pennies are all she has left to survive on. The temple leadership happily takes it from her. Rather than blessing poor widows like this, the temple’s leadership ignores her, killing her bios—her physical life.

This scene happens under the leadership of scribes and priests who are tossing aside goodness and salvation to exploit the poor and pursue self-promotion. Israel’s prophets dealt with the same problem in their day.

As today’s reading concludes, those same leaders convene to crucify Jesus. Jerusalem and its elite look more like the ancient Pharaoh in Egypt, using and abusing people as objects, rather than a kingdom of priests set on Yahweh’s mission to bless the world.

Sandwiched between these two stories is Jesus’ final Passover meal with his disciples. Designing the story with this scene in the middle reminds readers that God has been operating in the midst of life-consuming tyrants for a long time. The surrounding reality may look dark, but God is present and active. Jesus, like a new Moses, will set the captives free from religious oppression to restore their lives.

Paired themes of light and darkness, life and death, and goodness and exploitation come to the surface in today’s reading as Jesus exposes hidden, murderous motives. Israel needs rescuing. While the temple leadership currently consumes human life, Jesus is “building” a new temple. Like Moses, Jesus will lead the people out of corruption and death, into renewed life.

Reflection Questions

• How does the story about Jesus’ final Passover meal with his disciples fit with the idea that the Bible is a unified story leading to Jesus? What other stories and passages from the Hebrew Bible point to Jesus’ sacrifice for humanity?
• Meditate on Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34. How did the early church continue to participate in Jesus’ symbolic meal after he had departed?