Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised.” And they were greatly distressed.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, March 9, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
This short paragraph is sandwiched among several seemingly unrelated stories. Peter, James, and John have just come down the mountain from the Transfiguration to find that Jesus’ disciples don’t have the power to heal a sick boy. He scolds them for their lack of faith, then tells them even the tiniest bit of faith would allow them to move mountains.
Then they travel to Galilee, where Jesus says, “Oh, by the way, I’m going to die horribly in Jerusalem,” and his friends are greatly distressed.
Then they’re off to Capernaum where someone calls them out on not paying the temple tax, to which Jesus basically says, “God’s children don’t need to pay taxes to the temple of God, but, oh, just so we don’t make people made, go fishing and the first fish you catch will have a coin in its mouth to pay the tax.”
What can we glean from this in a simple devotion today? All three little vignettes point to one commonality: Jesus’ reign is not what you think. First, you don’t need immeasurable power to be an instrument of God’s healing—all you need is a tiny modicum of faith, and God will do the rest. Second, Jesus’ reign isn’t about him becoming a powerful, earthly king who will throw off the oppression of the Romans—it’s about him suffering and dying to destroy the oppression of sin and death. Third, in Jesus’ reign, access to God isn’t limited to those who can afford it—God’s love is freely given to all God’s children without exception.
In short, Jesus’ reign is in the world, but not of the world. And as Jesus’ followers, we, too, are invited to look critically at the societal norms in which we’ve been raised and see the ways Jesus shows up that are counterintuitive. That’s where freedom lies.
How do I see Jesus showing up in counter-cultural ways in my life and the world?
