PASSION WEEK – Wednesday
THE WIDOW’S OFFERING
These copper coins were Jewish leptons; the smallest amount of currency available. They were not Greek or Roman coins.
I once took my 2nd grade teacher 300 pennies I had collected to buy 2, $1.50 chocolate bars that the school was selling for a fundraiser. I don’t think my parents knew about my clandestine chocolate purchase, though I’m sure most of the pennies had come from their sofa cushions, glove box, and loose change. I didn’t take any nickels, dimes, or quarters. But nobody cares about pennies (or so I reasoned). I put the pennies in a little blue plastic pouch I had filched from some other plaything. When I sat them on Teacher’s desk I said something like, “There are 300, but you can count them to be sure.” “That’s ok,” she said. “I believe you.”
It took a pile of 128 leptons to equal 1 Roman denarius, which was roughly a day’s wage for a laborer. If we were to adjust a bit for inflation and a $15.00 minimum wage, a single lepton would be worth about $0.70.
In a society making $15/hr, $1.40 won’t buy much. But that’s all this widow had for groceries and rent – 2 leptons.
😐 You keep calling them leptons. I thought they were called “mites.” You know, “the widow’s mite.”
According to the Google, the term “mite” was a nickname that originated in the mid-1300s for small Flemish copper coin. The word “mite” was Middle Dutch for tiny animal or insect. Old English also had the word mite (the insect) from a Proto-Germanic root meaning “to cut.” Both John Wycliffe and William Tyndale (the first 2 men to translate the Bible into English) used the word “mite” to convey the tiny size and value of the lepton. The King James Version kept the translation choice. Modern translations often just call them what they were “two small copper coins.”
Though the rich put large sums of money in the temple offering chest, it represented a small percentage of their overall wealth. The widow gave 100%.
This observation by Jesus shows that the Lord is more interested in the generosity and faith of the giver than the size of the gift.
THE COMING DESTRUCTION
Matthew and Mark also include Jesus’ warnings about the upcoming destruction of Jerusalem in less than 40 years. And I plan to dive deep when we have read their chapters.
Just as the OT prophecies about the Messiah’s first-coming were often in the same breath as prophecies about the 2nd-coming and eternal reign, so also are the prophecies of “The Olivet Discourse” (so named because Mt. 24:3 tells us that Jesus delivers this teaching from the Mount of Olives – which, come to think of it, must have been incredible. They would’ve had a splendid view of the temple that Jesus was saying would be torn down.
Many of the warnings were for that generation, not ours. The early Christians heeded the warnings of Jesus and got their families out of Jerusalem before the Roman siege began.
Other warnings just skip past like 2000 years of history and go straight to the return of Christ.
Still others may have a double application for 70AD and someday yet future.
We will look at all of it in depth when we read Matthew 24 next week.
GREEKS WANT TO SEE JESUS
We need to go back and finish John 12. John was the last of the Gospels written and it must’ve “seemed good to him and to the Holy Spirit” to write down mostly the things not recorded in Matthew, Mark, or Luke.
A group of Greeks have come to Jerusalem for Passover. This suggests that they either are, or are considering becoming, Jewish proselytes. John only calls them Greeks and not proselytes. And the text seems to indicate a lack of access to Jesus which would make sense only if they were unable to enter the part of the temple where Jesus was. They want to meet Jesus. But we see no indication in the text that Jesus ever speaks to them. If they were not converted and circumcised, then they could not go further into the temple than The Court of the Gentiles. I wonder if they bumped into Philip out in the Court of the Gentiles and sent word by him of their request.
Andrew tells Jesus about the request from the Greeks, but Jesus is focussed on one thing only. The cross. Now is not the time for the Gentiles to hear the message of the Kingdom. That will happen in due time. Right now, is the time for the King of Israel to be betrayed and handed over to be crucified.
Jesus commits Himself to the plan saying, “for this purpose I have come to this hour.” And He prays…
“Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.””
John 12:28 ESV
This is the 3rd and final time in the Gospels where the Father speaks from Heaven.
- Baptism: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
- Transfiguration: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him.”
- Passion Week: “I have glorified it [my name] and I will glorify it again.”
This wasn’t a voice that only Christ heard. Interestingly, the people around Jesus could not apparently comprehend the sound. Some thought it was thunder. Others thought it was the voice of an angel. It was clearly an audible but disembodied sound.
This is similar to Paul’s experience when He encounters the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. His companions heard the voice but could not understand it.
“The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.”
Acts 9:7 ESV
“Now those who were with me saw the light but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me.”
Acts 22:9 ESV
RULER OF THIS WORLD CAST OUT
Then Jesus makes a statement that we should take into account as we hammer out our theology. You may heard something like, “Satan was kicked out of heaven along with 1/3 of the angels at some point in the mists of time before earth was created.”
I don’t think I could prove or disprove a single clause of that statement from the Bible without a lot of cutting and pasting.
Do you remember reading a story like that anywhere so far in the Bible? Cause I sure don’t.
The angels in Genesis 6 weren’t kicked out. They left. Revelation 20:2 links the title Satan the “Old Serpent” presumably from Eden. The serpent wasn’t “kicked out of heaven” in Genesis 3. He was cursed to go on his belly and eat dust and prophesied to have his head broken by the seed of the woman. There is no mention of angels at all, let alone a third of them in either Genesis 3 or 6. The only place that mentions “a third of the stars” (which is admittedly angel language), is in Revelation 12, which we will come to in a minute.
Look at Jesus’ statement:
“Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.”
John 12:31 ESV
If redemption is about reclaiming planet earth (the world) so it can be ruled by a human as God intended, then the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of that reclaiming. Ever since Eden when Adam and Eve trusted the word of the Serpent over the Word of God, mankind hasn’t really been ruling the world. Humanity’s choices have been shaped by evil spiritual forces.
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Ephesians 6:12 ESV
Paul said the “spiritual forces of evil” were “in the heavenly places.” That doesn’t sound like they are “cast out of heaven” and sent to Hell. For one thing, there is more than one heaven. There are heavenly placeS. Plural. Paul will talk about “the third heaven.”
When Jesus said “now will the ruler of this world be cast out,” we should ask, “Cast out of where? And to where?
In Job 1 and Zechariah 3:1 we see “the Accuser” in heaven accusing men to God.
There is a scene in Revelation where John sees the Dragon cast out. First he sees that the tail of the Dragon “swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth,” (Rev. 12:4). Then the Dragon tries to eat the baby king (Jesus) who is born to the woman. But Jesus ascends to God’s throne and then there’s this battle AFTER the child (who is Jesus) ascends to heaven.
“Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”
Revelation 12:7-12 ESV
The Devil, the Accuser, (which is what “The Satan” means), is cast down; not from Heaven to Hell, but from Heaven (where he has had access at least in the OT as we saw with Job and Zechariah) to EARTH.
Jesus is standing in the temple about 2 days before His crucifixion saying that what Revelation 12 describes is going to happen NOW. Everything in Revelation is not future to us. Some of it describes the past. If you think that Satan has not been on the earth for the past 2000 years making war against the woman who gave birth to the king (Israel) and the rest of her offspring who hold the testimony of Jesus (the Church), then when do you think that war is going to start? You might want to read some Church history including Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and visit Voice of the Martyrs and pray for some of our brothers and sisters who are prisoners in the war against the Church.
SON OF MAN LIFTED UP
Satan is cast down, but the Son of Man is lifted up. This talk of death (lifted up on a cross) is confusing to even the best students of prophecy at that time.
“So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?””
John 12:34 ESV
Here is one of many OT Messianic prophecies they may have had in mind:
“Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”
Isaiah 9:7 ESV
God has promised that the Son of David, the Messianic King, will reign forever. Theologically, they had detached the prophecies about Messiah ben David (the victorious King) from Messiah ben Joseph (the suffering Servant). And I honestly can’t fault them for this. The two types of prophecy seem to be in conflict. On one hand you have the king who reigns forever. On the other, this:
“By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.”
Isaiah 53:8-9 ESV
How Jesus could do and be BOTH the suffering servant who dies, AND the eternally reigning King may seem obvious to us, but that’s only because we’ve seen the solution to the puzzle. It seemed impossible to them.
It’s kind of like the 9-dot puzzle.
Most people think inside the box and try unsuccessfully to connect the dots.
The answer is outside the box.
The people listening to Jesus are stuck thinking inside the box of 1 human life. When a person dies, that’s it.
Jesus can be BOTH the suffering servant who dies AND the victorious king who lives forever by stepping outside the box of death.
Some of the people listening believe, even though they don’t yet understand.
Some believe though they are afraid to say so publicly.
And others decide that Jesus is not their Messiah.
That about sums up all of history since.
To The Reader 