He Looked Up
Welcome to Passion Week, Palm Sunday to Easter, where nearly 2/3 of the four gospels are devoted to telling the story of that brief period in the life of our Savior.
Jesus spent much of the Passion Week proclaiming his authority in Jerusalem, turning over tables at the temple, proclaiming his death and resurrection, and revealing himself as the subject of David’s Messianic Psalms (see Matt 22, Mark 12, Luke 20). His entry to the holy city was reminiscent of the conquering king in Psalm 110 making his enemies his footstool, crushing kings, and heaping up corpses. I imagine something akin to me coming home from work to find my children arguing and fighting, making a mess of my house. Instead of dispensing hugs and kisses, I raise my voice and demand peace and obedience: “I am your father; do as I say, or heads will roll!” Or something to that effect.
But of course, Jesus, who rules differently, was the king who would suffer his own death on a cross. Psalm 110:7, the final verse of the psalm, seems to flip the first six “conquer” verses upside down:
He will drink from the brook by the road;
therefore, he will lift up his head.
The mighty king dressed in holy splendor stopped along the way, not necessarily to refresh himself, but to consider the sacrificial task ahead. The image of the Christ lifting up his head stirs my spirit. His head lifted toward the hill of Calvary; his eyes fixed on the foreboding events with desperate sinners along the way in his gaze. Was I in his gaze?
Luke 21 begins with a story of who Jesus was looking at when he lifted up his head:
He looked up and saw the rich dropping their offerings into the temple treasury. 2 He also saw a poor widow dropping in two tiny coins. 3 “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all of them. 4 For all these people have put in gifts out of their surplus, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”
Jerusalem, the holy city and the rightful place of Jesus’s throne. The temple with its majestic walls, incense, and curtains, the place most suitable for the holy and righteous son of God. Yet his gaze was on the mighty work of a poor widow. What a strange kingdom Jesus was establishing!
As you prepare your heart for Passion Week, consider the incredible, unbelievable truth that the almighty ruler of the universe set his eyes not on a magnificent temple, which would soon be toppled, but on an unheralded single woman giving out of her poverty. That earned the praise of the anointed king who chose to suffer and die for us.
Let us all fix our eyes on Jesus, who pioneered and perfected what the widow demonstrated. Let us march boldly and humbly with him to the cross, proclaiming victory over the world and sin.
