And he was teaching daily in the temple. (Luke 19:47)
There was room in the temple courtyard now. With the money tables gone, the baskets carted off, the great court was quiet, open. And into that vacated place the people poured to hear Him.
That’s how it is in the Tuesdays of our lives. When His housecleaning clears away the clutter and He opens up space, in our schedules and in our hearts, then we hunger to fill that receptive space with knowledge of Him.
This third day of Holy Week corresponds to the time in our lives when we drive two hundred miles to hear an inspired preacher, when we go without lunch to buy the latest teaching tape, or spend our week’s vacation at a church retreat.
What teaching it was, there in the temple! Jesus saw a widow drop a penny into the treasury, and taught about sacrificial giving. He was shown a coin with Tiberius’s profile, and taught about priorities.
But Tuesday is not yet Easter Sunday. That is the risk on this part of our walk, that we’ll be content with head knowledge and fail to complete the journey. All of us know people who stop at Tuesday. They attend three Bible studies, run from conference to conference and never encounter the risen Lord.
Tuesday is a dangerous day for me. I love to study just for the sake of study. The sight of a fresh notebook makes my pulses speed. I can take beautifully outlined notes of a lecture without relating a word the speaker says to my own life. There must have been many like me who heard Jesus teach, that first Holy Week. There were crowds in the Temple, only a handful at the empty tomb.
But Jesus will not let us stop short of Easter, not forever. The time comes to close the books, to leave the lecture hall. To take the road to Calvary and beyond.
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Find more Holy Week devotionals on our Lent page.
