The transition time !

The exuberance the flowers bring in a garden is a time of delight and rejoicing! But they have a temporary spell of presence! The flowers become dry and wither away after a while. When the stems are pruned, they sprout again to grow and give flowers 

This temporariness of flowers and the new season of flowering later became a an engaging thought during the day yesterday. 

It incidentally was a day after the Palm Sunday, after the recollection of Jesus of Nazareth entering the  temple at Jerusalem.

A passage in the New Testament of the Bible in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 21 verses 12-17 describe the scene after the entry of Jesus to Jerusalem temple. People with different illnessnesses came to Him and He healed them. He restored the temple from a place of merchandise to a house prayer and healing. 

Jesus left the temple and went to Bethany following this because the chief priests were indignant in seeing people welcoming Jesus and  coming to Him for healing! 

Bethany was a familiar place for Jesus, where He was used to visiting the house of Martha, Mary and Lazarus. This time He seems to have gone to the house of Simon, following which He continued teaching people in parables which appear in chapters 21 and 22 of the same gospel. For Jesus it was a season of rest and readiness before He was captured for trial that led to His crucifixion. 

Each of us encounters the turmoil of Jerusalem and the shalom of Bethany in our lives. 

The respite of that peace we had for the last sixty years after the Second World War is now disturbed with war. It seems that there is an urge or instinct for war that some rulers of nations cannot resist. 

This is a truth worth pondering upon. The Jerusalem temple was occupied by merchants who turned the temple of worship into personal gain! Jesus restored it where people could come for prayer and healing.

Have the rulers of some nations turned their position for personal or territorial gain or economic prosperity for some, that the ordinary citizens are displaced or harmed! Have we lost the temple of democracy to Oligarchs, autocrats, 'nationalists' and people obsessed with wealth creation!

The temple of Jerusalem is a symbol of how it got forcibly occupied for merchandise displacing it from being a house of prayer, worship and healing!  

Following its restoration on the first Palm Sunday with the coming of Jesus, people found it as a place of prayer, worship and healing! But people who lost their merchandise were indignant because of which Jesus had to leave the temple! 

After the flowering season,  the garden waits till the pruned plants would give new flowers. 

We are in that season, hoping that a pruning process is underway  through this war and violence for a new philosophy of opportunity, welfare and prospects to emerge as the mission of nations! 

There is a temporariness to all that we are used to. We live our transitory life in transit! 

Is it that leaders who fear the loss of 'control' or their importance are turning the temple of democracy into an authoritarian rule!  

Now is the time to long for and pray for the leaders of nations to let the earth be a place for human dwelling, in peace, harmony and wellness !  

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)