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Jesus warns us that we will be betrayed not just by anyone but by people who are close to us, family members. Experiencing betrayal is unfortunately more common than we would like. Being betrayed by those who are close to us is especially hurtful. Betrayal undermines our ability to trust. Have you ever experienced betrayal?

Betrayal is a prevalent theme in the Gospels. From the moment Jesus was born there was betrayal. I direct you to Matthew 2: 1-12 where the wisemen who have tracked the star to Bethlehem ask King Herod where the infant king of the Jews is. After consulting with his advisors, he tells the wisemen to go find the child and report back to him so can go and give homage. The scheme almost worked but the wisemen are warned in a dream not to go back to Herod. King Herod lied to the wisemen to get information from them so he could kill the child. He betrayed the wisemen who had made it clear to Herod that their intention was to pay homage to the child not set him up to be killed.

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Todays Gospel is quite different from most others. In this Gospel we have Jesus aggressively driving the money changes and sellers out of the temple. At first glance it is quite different from Jesus’ usual way. There are no immediate teachings, healings or witty dialogue. It is clear that Jesus is passionate about his faith, and he is not willing to compromise. Professor David Landry of the University of St. Thomas and many other biblical scholars suggest that "the importance of the episode is signalled by the fact that within a week of this incident, Jesus is dead”. This event likely functioned as the 'trigger' for Jesus' death. The Scribes and Pharisees tolerated Jesus. They did not like the fact that Jesus was popular with the people, his insightful teachings and the fact that Jesus won every debate with them. It was not until Jesus attacked their financial interests did, they escalate their intentions to stop him. Before I go any further, should you wish to follow up on this theory, I invite you to check out David Landry’s article "God in the Details: The Cleansing of the Temple in Four Jesus Films". published in 2009 in the Journal of Religion & Film.

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There are three stories in the Gospels where Jesus raises someone from the dead. We have the story of Lazarus being raised (John 11:38-44), Jarius’ 12-year-old daughter being raised as recorded in (Mark 5:21-43, Luke 8:40 and Matthew 9:18-26) and now in today’s Gospel we hear about Jesus raising the son of a widow in a town called Nain. What is interesting in this Gospel is how few facts we have about the story. In the two previous resurrection stories we have names, and we are made aware of some background information, and we are provided teachings but not here. It’s clear that this resurrection was not planned. If Jesus had arrived an hour earlier or the funeral was an hour later there would have been no miracle.

What does this mean?

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