Hope, well-spent

Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover. He was there with the festival crowd. He made his entry into the city a demonstration, a mock-triumphal entry. As the Roman governor came into the city from Caesarea, mounted on a war-horse and accompanied by soldiers bearing swords and shields—a display intended to shock and awe the citizens of Jerusalem, and squelch any thought of rebellion—at the same time Jesus was coming in from the opposite direction, mounted on a donkey, and accompanied by peasants and children waving palm branches.
The next day Jesus went to the temple and overturned the tables of the currency exchange and the vendors of sacrificial animals. The authorities, both religious and civic, would have arrested him then, but the crowds were with him, and they did not want to risk the embarrassment of a riot while the Roman governor was in town.
The presence of the crowd protected Jesus the next day as well. And it is on this day that Jesus was sitting opposite the treasury and watching the people come and go.

Beware of the scribes, he said. Be aware. They may look devout, they may sound devout, but watch what they do. They devour widows’ houses.
And then, as if to illustrate the point, here comes the widow, putting her little all into the temple treasury.

Perhaps she was emulating the widow of Zarephath, who gave all she had, or all she thought she had, to the man of God, Elijah. Once the widow of the temple gave up all she had to live on, what happened next? Did she go away to die? Or, did she find, upon retuning to her home, a jar of wheat and a vial of oil that would never fail? Or perhaps she found a different kind of miracle. Perhaps she was taken into a neighbor’s home, and cared for, as one of God’s children.

I like to think that she was, because that is who God is, according to the Psalm, “the Lord upholds the orphan and widow.”
Happy are those who hope in God. The psalms arose from the hard-earned wisdom of crushed hope, from the days of exile, when trust in princes proved foolish. The people of Israel learned that hope in their princes was wasted. But hope in God—hope in God is hope well-spent.