Monday, December 8, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Matthew 21-23
Key Verse
Matthew 22:20 — “And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?”
Devotional Thought
The road slopes down from the Mount of Olives toward Jerusalem, and on it comes a King riding a borrowed donkey with her colt trailing behind. The multitude spreads their garments in the way and cuts branches from the trees, crying, “Hosanna to the son of David.” It is the kind of scene we revisit every Palm Sunday, yet here in December it reads like a lamp already lit before the feast. The city is “moved,” asking, “Who is this?”—and the answer given is plain: “This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.” Within a day He enters the temple, overturns the tables of the moneychangers, and declares, “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.” The blind and the lame come to Him there, and He heals them, while children cry Hosanna in the courts.
But the same chapter turns somber. A fig tree full of leaves and empty of fruit withers at His word. The chief priests demand, “By what authority doest thou these things?” and He answers their question with a question about John the Baptist that leaves them stammering, “We cannot tell.” Then come the parables—the two sons, one who refuses and repents and goes, one who promises and stays home; the husbandmen who beat the servants and kill the son, saying, “This is the heir”; the wedding feast where the invited make light of it and the highways are swept for guests instead. And the chapter closes with seven woes pronounced over scribes and Pharisees who “say, and do not,” who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, who cleanse the outside of the cup while within is extortion.
In this Advent season we are, all of us, waiting for a King to arrive—and Matthew 21-23 insists that He has already come once, and that His coming was not gentle only. He came meek, riding a colt, and He came cleansing, overturning tables. He came inviting the poor from the highways to a wedding, and He came pronouncing woe on those who used religion as a stage. The two sons are still with us: the one who says “I will not” and afterward repents, and the one who says “I go, sir” and never moves. The season of waiting is a season of examination, because the King who is coming is the same Lord who asked, “What think ye of Christ?”
And notice where the day ends: “He left them, and went out of the city into Bethany; and he lodged there.” The King who wept over the city still found a home in a small village with friends who loved Him. That is the mercy tucked inside these hard chapters. He is not only the stone that grinds to powder; He is the Lord who lodges near, who heals the lame in His own house, and who perfects praise out of the mouths of babes. Prepare Him room—not a swept and garnished façade, but a heart that repents and bears fruit.
Reflection
- When the King asks you, “What think ye of Christ?”—do you answer with the crowd’s words, or with a life that has actually made room for Him to lodge?
- Which son are you this Advent: the one who said “I will not” and afterward repented and went, or the one who said “I go, sir” and went not?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, Thou who camest meek upon a colt and yet cleansed Thy Father’s house with zeal, search us in this waiting season. We confess the leaves without fruit, the outside of the cup washed while the inside is full of extortion and excess. Do not let us be as the second son, promising and not going. Repent in us where we have refused, and go in us where we have promised. Make our hearts a Bethany where Thou canst lodge, and our lives a house of prayer rather than a den of thieves. Out of the mouths of babes Thou hast perfected praise; perfect it in us, we pray. Amen.