Is lip service enough!
I have enjoyed reading the short version of In Touch and it is about right for my old brain. In the last issue there was an interesting comment on Lent, and it contained two things which caught my eye and I thought I could add some additional comment. The first is the correct statement that the temple authorities were concerned for their livelihood but perhaps it goes further. By the time this was written the temple had already been destroyed by the Romans after another insurrection. The temple hierarchy were responsible to the Romans for collecting the taxes and obtained a cut from this but were also expected to keep the population subservient and peaceful. Jesus’s actions and statements threatened this peace and particularly at the time of the Passover remembering the time when the Israelite nation had been freed from the domination of the Egyptian pharaoh it could have stirred up unwelcome nationalism. The couple on the road to Emmaus commented. “we had hoped that he might be the