“Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.”
—Matthew 21:14
After His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus went to the Temple. If our Bibles contained only Mark’s gospel, we would believe that nothing other than Jesus’ ruckus with the money changers happened during that visit: “And Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple. So when He had looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve” (Mark 11:11). Matthew, however, lets us know that, while He was there, the blind and the lame found Him, and He characteristically healed them all. (On a side note, this is the last time in Matthew that Jesus is shown healing anyone. It is also the only time in the Gospels He is chronicled healing anyone in the Temple.)
We live in a society in which the handicapped are treated compassionately and fairly, especially in comparison with the historical examples of ancient cultures. Back then, the disabled were second-class citizens, if not worse. Some cultures exposed infants with defects, and adults who became lame or blind or infirm were often left to their own devices, as the community did not want to expend the resources to support them. Our measures—welfare, ramps, close-to-the-door parking spaces, special restrooms, even special door handles—is far above and beyond what has been done for the handicapped through the ages.
Even Israel, in some cases, treated the blind and the lame as less-than-full citizens. Because the Levitical priesthood represented God, they were to be physically as perfect as possible, thus the injunction, “For any man who has a defect shall not approach [to serve God]: a man blind or lame, who has a marred face or any limb too long,” etc. (Leviticus 21:18). Some Jews, like those of the community at Qumran, extended this prohibition to mean that all Israelites who were deformed in some way could not sacrifice at the Temple. Worse, there were those who took the saying in II Samuel 5:8, “The blind and the lame shall not come into the house” to imply that such people were not even allowed into the Temple.
When He healed the blind and the lame in the Temple—probably in the Court of the Gentiles, but could He have moved closer to the sanctuary?—Jesus may have had this exclusionary attitude in mind, along with the essence of Isaiah 56:7, which He had just quoted in part to the money changers:
Even them I will bring to My holy mountain,
And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
Will be accepted on My altar;
For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.
This little vignette thus becomes a witness against the hardheartedness of the Jews, especially the religious leaders, who were barring people from worshiping the true God because they deemed them “unworthy.” Yet, Jesus, God in the flesh, the Savior of humanity, displayed His mercy and loving-kindness toward even the lowest and marginalized among them. It was always God’s intention to open salvation to everyone: Israelite, Gentile, man, woman, slave, freeman, rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, able-bodied, and disabled. He would not allow some physical defect to hinder Him from calling them to Him.
What happened on this day—His triumphal entry, chasing the money changers from the Temple, healing the blind and lame, and the subsequent shouting of children, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (Matthew 21:15)—proved to be what pushed the chief priests and scribes to commit deicide. In every way, Jesus exposed them for the avaricious petty tyrants that they were, and they could see their little empires teetering on ruin. To their self-serving minds, the only solution was to remove the burr irritating them—and as soon as possible.
