Two copper coins, almost nothing

Reflections are everywhere - in crystal blue lakes and shining, marble surfaces, in the glass of towering skyscrapers and the concave lenses of ever-present cameras. They capture my thinking and mesmerize me, enticing me to look again because there's more in the picture!

Mark 12

Verse 41

Καὶ καθίσας κατέναντι τοῦ γαζοφυλακίου ἐθεώρει πῶς ὁ ὄχλος βάλλει χαλκὸν εἰς τὸ γαζοφυλάκιον. καὶ πολλοὶ πλούσιοι ἔβαλλον πολλά

(He took a seat facing the collection box and watched how the crowd tossed their copper coins into the collection box.  The wealthy people were tossing in a lot.)

I'm not sure what the point of the story is here.  Jesus, at the end of his last week on Earth, sat across from the box that people put money in.  Why was he there watching that?  He had already cleaned house in the temple courts to say that all the money changing that was going on wasn't what God was about (previous chapter, Mark 11).  He had answered questions of the Jerusalem religious leaders targeting the blasphemous tenants of his teaching in their opinion.  They had tried to trap him all week in saying something that would be against their law.  So, what was his strategy in sitting down to watch people put in money?  The prophet Malachi had made it clear God expected his people to bring their money to him.

Verse 42

καὶ ἐλθοῦσα μία χήρα πτωχὴ ἔβαλεν λεπτὰ δύο, ὅ ἐστιν κοδράντης

(A widow who begged tossed in two of the lowest denomination coins.)

It was just another Passover for this lady.  Passovers were particular grueling for  her.  She had had to figure out how to make ends meet for a while now.  Her husband had been able to do that previously for the two of them, but he had met his end before his wife.  She had been reduced to eeking out a living these days.  During this week, people from all around the whole region were coming to the city.  She didn't have anything to give, but these travelers had good hearts.  They were coming to celebrate with relatives the goodness God had shown them.  By asking them for a little help, she could at least ask for a couple of coins to drop into the collection box at the Temple courtyard to show God that she still placed her trust in him.

When she received this from a generous visitor, she made her way to the Temple courtyard.  She was unashamed.  She had to show appreciation to God for taking care of her these days and for his good care of her husband and her when he had live.  She walked right up to the box and tossed in her coins like any other person even though she knew the coins were a very small amount of money.  She quickly walked away for the next person to come to the box.

Yeah, Jesus noticed.  Immediately, she was the center of his focus.  Although his followers were with him, he didn't know if they had seen just what had happened.  He reigned in their attention.

Verse 43

καὶ προσκαλεσάμενος τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι ἡ χήρα αὕτη ἡ πτωχὴ πλεῖον πάντων ἔβαλεν τῶν βαλλόντων εἰς τὸ γαζοφυλάκιον

(He called his followers around him and spoke to them, "Honestly, of all those who have tossed into the collection box, this widow who begs has tossed in the most of anybody!")

The Twelve were used to Jesus giving contrasts about what people thought was good and what God thought was good.  They had heard it many times.  Jesus didn't speak about money much, though, so he had their attention.  They might have expected him to comment on the "one-tenth" giving that good Jews were supposed to give or on giving from the great wealth above and beyond the tenth that these Jerusalem wealthy elite were capable of giving.  No.  He said the beggar widow gave more than any other person.  They knew to wait.  Jesus would explain what he meant to them.

Verse 44

πάντες γὰρ ἐκ τοῦ περισσεύοντος αὐτοῖς ἔβαλον, αὕτη δὲ ἐκ τῆς ὑστερήσεως αὐτῆς πάντα ὅσα εἶχεν ἔβαλεν ὅλον τὸν βίον αὐτῆς

("They all tossed in from their great wealth, but she from her abject poverty tossed in as much as she had, everything, from her means of living.")

So, why is his last direct teaching lesson before death done at the giving box at the temple?  Because it was the universal setting to acknowledge appreciation AND trust in God's care of his people.  In the capital city of the Jews, appreciation and trust were doled out in limited measures because of the wealth of the party leaders, their dependence on a written code rather than a living God, and their "place" for God since they had to work most of their daily living with the Roman governors and military commanders to control their own population.  They trusted a great deal in their own wisdom.

Likely Jesus had a day left to live on the Earth.  He had accomplished his teaching mission.  He had come to Jerusalem and tangled with the scholars of the Talmud and the party elites.  He had made a huge statement in cleansing the temple in order to show how far off-base the establishment was in conducting God's business - the temple needed to return to being a house of prayer for the nations, not to continue being a money collection location for God.  He had one last lesson to give to his Twelve.  This was it.   Now he could rest.  The end would unravel over the next several hours.

I don't know that the lady's income was replenished, but if she was like every other person, she had a means or a hope that the little that she put in the box would be replenished.  It was her trust that God would replenish that supply that Jesus complimented.  His last lesson would be about trust.  God gives us what we need.  We simply honor and trust.

The widow woman has a lot to teach me.  Jesus was right to focus my attention on her.  I usually exhibit a lot of pride.  I seem to have a surplus of it.  My years are supposed to have taught me to trust God and honor what he has done.  I'm a slow learner.  So, God draws me again to something his son did.  The lesson he taught before undergoing his last hours on Earth.  I am grateful to have in my mind the picture of the woman who begged giving her two coins amounting to almost nothing.  If only I could have that amount of trust in my God who gives me everything I need and so much more.



[The song is Sovreign by Chris Tomlin]
[Introductory artwork retrieved from http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/267625/la-palabra-del-dia-liso]

[The Greek text used is the Nestle Aland 28th edition]
[Translations from Greek are my own.]

Break-out

Reflections everywhere capture my thinking - in crystal blue lakes and shining, marble surfaces, in the glass of towering skyscrapers and the concave lenses of ever-present cameras - and mesmerize me, enticing me to look again because there's more in the picture!

It was the end of his life on Earth.  He knew it.  He had deliberately come to Jerusalem in order to encounter the Jewish leaders in the heart of the teaching center of Judaism.  Jesus knew they wouldn't tolerate him any longer, brand him as a heretic, and kill him.  The time in Jerusalem had gone exactly as he had thought it would (or exactly as was planned).

But, his Twelve didn't know this was the end of his life on Earth.  He had to make certain that they understood the unfolding events to the fullest extent possible.  In John 16, Jesus begins by telling the Twelve about events that would happen after he left, such as being ostracized from synagogues, and being martyred.  The purpose was to reveal ahead of time some events so that they would not lose their faith.

He also had a second purpose.  Jesus needed to let them know about someone else - someone who would follow him.  His end was the beginning of the time when another would come to stand beside each of them.  In all their endeavors, they would come to count on this third person to be by their sides.  The Twelve had to be introduced.  And this was the time.

Verse 7

ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ τὴν ἀλήθειαν λέγω ὑμῖν, συμφέρει ὑμῖν ἵνα ἐγὼ ἀπέλθω. ἐὰν γὰρ μὴ ἀπέλθω, ὁ παράκλητος οὐκ ἐλεύσεται πρὸς ὑμᾶς· ἐὰν δὲ πορευθῶ, πέμψω αὐτὸν πρὸς ὑμᾶς

(Truthfully, it is better for you that I leave this world.  If I don't leave, the one who will stand beside you and help you cannot come to you.  If I leave, I can send him to you.)

Jesus answered what the obvious questions would have been if he had stopped talking.  The questions on the table would have been, "When he comes, what exactly will he say or do?  How will he help us?"  But the Twelve didn't have a chance to ask; Jesus knew they needed to know because they lived in a world at large that didn't have a clue what was happening in Judea, nor did they care, and because they lived in a land where people of their own kind would represent God differently than the way Jesus had represented him.  Both groups of people had "worldly notions."

Verse 8

Καὶ ἐλθὼν ἐκεῖνος ἐλέγξει τὸν κόσμον περὶ ἁμαρτίας καὶ περὶ δικαιοσύνης καὶ περὶ κρίσεως

(When he comes, he will refute worldly notions about failure and guilt, about decent living, and about sitting in judgment of others.)

That probably was enough information to answer the obvious question the Twelve would have had.  But, Jesus took it a step farther.  He gave the reasons for his answer.  The Greek word μέν is a word used to show that what followed would be connected to the statement that went before it, usually by way of explanation.  The Greek word δέ following the clause with μέν created a series of parallel phrases that explain.  In this case there were two additional parallel phrases.  This rhetorical formula was perfect for Jesus to succinctly clarify his answer.

Verse 9

περὶ ἁμαρτίας μέν, ὅτι οὐ πιστεύουσιν εἰς ἐμέ

(He will verify what I said about failure and guilt by showing what happens when people don't believe me.)

Verse 10

περὶ δικαιοσύνης δέ, ὅτι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα ὑπάγω καὶ οὐκέτι θεωρεῖτέ με

(He will verify what I said about decent living by showing that I did go back to the father after you didn't see me anymore.)

Verse 11

περὶ δὲ κρίσεως, ὅτι ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου κέκριται

(And he will verify what I have said about sitting in judgment by showing that the ruler of this world has been tried and condemned.)

When a person works with an artist, all the artist needs is the idea, then we can appreciate the idea through the artist's representation of this idea.  People can do this for themselves with the website fotosearch.com by typing in a word in the search bar and then scrolling through the 25,000 photos of the idea.  If I type in summer, I am returned thousands of images of summer, all different, all representations of the season.  In such a way, a linguist can take the words on the surface of an utterance and peer into the mind of a person as to the meanings being represented by words.

One can hear some deafening sounds coming from the words being used here.  The three ideas of failure and guilt, decent living, and sitting in judgment are what the Jews specialized in when it came to representing their law.  They had a narrow view of creating their system of justice for not living what they considered to be a decent life, ostracism and negative critique being a part of it.  The world beyond the Jews was no better.  Their idea of justice, might makes right, made for a harsh and brutal society.  I am deafened by the ideas of bound, break out, and freedom.  The Jews seem to have set themselves up for failure since they expected human beings to miraculously perform to the letter of their law, which was layered with traditions and well-intended rabbis' applications.  Honor, too, was in the world at large, but it was a table set for family members and strong men mostly.  Others were just miserable failures.  I can't help but hear the idea that those outside the ring of honor could not be helped and never would amount to much in life.  And, the idea of judgment came in many forms, but one of the most prevalent was the prestige games of trying to be better than or keep up with the Joneses.  Most people couldn't be better, allowing the ones who were, to condescend to them and judge them as worthless.

Jesus had taught about all three of those ideas.  Now he was turning his teaching over to someone else, someone who couldn't come until he departed.  The Twelve had to know so that they could tell others.  There is another person coming after Jesus leaves.  He will refute the deafening noises of the worldly notions about decent living, failure and guilt, and judgment.  He will verify what Jesus had taught.  He will stand beside them to help them break free of ostracism, low self esteem, and low caste in society.

The Twelve were faithful to tell Christians who followed their generation, and they to the generation after them, and they....  Even today, one of the main differences between my world view and many of the acquaintances I have, is my honor, contentment, and guilt-free mode of operation because of the verification of the appropriateness of Jesus' teachings against their belief of ostracism, prestige, and condemnation of others.  I am free of their view, not bound by it in any way.  People, of course, can't see Jesus anymore, but they see me and the reflection of the one that stands beside me helping me break out.  Yes, that's right.



[The beginning song is Does anybody hear her by Casting Crowns, the second song is Broken Girl by Matthew West, the ending song is Grace Wins by Matthew West]
[Introductory artwork retrieved from http://www.fotosearch.com/CSP859/k8597169/]

[The Greek text used is the Nestle Aland 28th edition]
[Translations from Greek are my own.]