Luke 19:29-46
Dear RTB’ers,
It’s Holy Saturday. At St. Andrew’s we’re ending Holy Week, while in our readings we’re just beginning. Today, Palm Sunday, as recorded in Luke. We just celebrated Palm Sunday last Sunday, so the story is familiar to all of us. Anything new? To me, yeah: …He sent two of the disciples… (v. 29b). He sent two. Did it take two disciples to bring back a donkey? Recall that He sent 72 of His disciples into the Galilean villages two-by-two (Luke 10:1). Something special about working together…!
Two other incidents are reported in today’s reading – Jesus’ prophecy over Jerusalem’s destruction and His cleansing of the temple. Jesus will have more to say about the destruction of Jerusalem in chapter 21, so we’ll wait on that. As for His cleansing of the temple, this incident is recorded in Holy Week in all three Synoptic gospels, while John has it at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (John 2:13-22). It’s interesting that the market was available in the temple for the benefit of travelers who had come from afar and did not bring sacrificial animals with them; thus with the market in place they could purchase them from traders in the temple. However, Jesus refers to this market as a “den of robbers” (v. 46b), so we’ll go with His take on this marketplace.
Have a blessed Holy Saturday!
Fred