Matthew Devotion: 21:14

'... then the blind and lamb came to him in the temple, and he healed them..."

When the Temple is cleansed, miracles of God abound!

In this Palm Sunday passage three notable things happened:

• the great multitudes laid their cloaks before him
• Jesus cleared out the sin and purged the blockages between God and his people
• there was a big healing service

I mentioned the first point in the last blog.

Most important here is to note the righteous rage that Jesus demonstrated when he saw the religious barricades preventing the Children of God from worshiping the Father in Spirit and Truth. And, even today, he is still in the business of tearing walls down. Why? In order to restore us to a right relationship with the Father. In the story, Jesus is cleaning the Temple in Jerusalem. In our life's, he is cleaning the Temple of our hearts.

We can be very clever in devising walls and barriers that set us up for a limited intimacy with God. We procrastinate, we sin. We seek to manage God. We tell ourselves God forgives us but then refuse to believe - outside of some self-sacrificial self-righteous act of self-indulgent penance which needs to really hurt - he has really forgiven us.  We even have been known to establish religious protocols in our devotions which do more to work us away from Intimacy with God than to gracefully and quite easily, simply receive the Gift.

(Many churches lack the manifest experience of the Father - the joy of Heaven, the healing, empowerment, the gifts of the Spirit - because of religious clutter in their gatherings, as well.)

Jesus knows there is nothing more on the Father's heart than to be with his kids. And he knows how happy we would all be if all the clutter was cleared from our Temple Courts.  So - being a God of Love and an enemy of all things bad - he strategically destroys anything that would get in the way of that. Conversely, he builds up everything that would enhance that. In this sense, he is a bit like his cousin John, who levels our mountains and fills in our valleys to prepare us to encounter the Way of the Lord.

Must run in the family.

If you ever sense he is driving out all those who are buying and selling in the the Temple of your heart; best to go with it. Who can stand before his mighty blast? It is all for Love's Sake anyway and you'll only pull a muscle clinging to that which will only hurt you in the log run anyway.

It is when this happens - the clearing of the Temple - that healing breaks forth. Or, perhaps the clearing of one's Temple and the healing of the blind and lame are both one and the same event?

Regardless, it was when all the clutter was removed from the Courts that the Lovingkindness of the Kingdom became manifest. Healing happened. People were set free to dance and worship their God, just like they had always been made to do, just like they have always dreamed of being.