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| "First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean" ~ Matthew 23:26 |
After Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem, there is a noticeable shift in His ministry.
Prior to this, there is a sense of invitation. He moves among people, teaching, healing, drawing them in. But in Jerusalem, something changes. Not in who He is, but in how He speaks. There is a clarity to it that feels more direct, as though what sits beneath the surface is now being brought into view.
In the days between Palm Sunday and the Last Supper, His actions and His teaching seem to circle the same idea again and again. He drives the traders out of the temple, a place that was meant for God but had taken on something else. He curses a fig tree that appears full, yet bears no fruit. It looks right, but it isn’t.
The parables He tells during this time carry that same thread. They speak about what is said compared to what is done, about response, about readiness, and about what is revealed when things are tested. There is a steady drawing out of what is real, rather than what is presented.
It does not feel like a new message, but it does feel like a clearer one. Almost as though the time for things to sit comfortably at the surface has passed, and what is true is now being shown for what it is.
And perhaps that is the part that is hardest to sit with.
Because it is one thing to appear a certain way, and another for that to be true beneath it. Over time, the two cannot be separated. What is within has a way of becoming visible, whether slowly or all at once.
There is something in this week that quietly calls for that alignment. Not in a forced or performative way, but in an honest one. To let what is seen match what is real, and to let go of what only ever sat at the level of appearance.
God, help me to live from the inside out, with what is within aligned with what is seen.
