and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins.
The woman could only have made this offering is she first overcame the temptation to hold something back from the Lord. There would have been all sorts of plausible reasons to do so. She might have told herself that it was too little to make a difference for anyone else. She might have justifiably felt the need to hold onto the money to provide for herself.
I tell you truly,
this poor widow put in more than all the rest;
For the widow, giving the gift would have seemed in a immense thing to do and yet it would have seemed less than what the others were giving and therefore insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But the Kingdom is all about reversals of this sort. It is about the power of things that are small and hidden to make a difference and change the world. Yet the widow shows us that what is small still feels small when we give it. It feels small even though it may feel hugely difficult, even though we may have no more beyond it to offer.
but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood.
Is Jesus really calling us to give everything away? Most likely not. We are called to take prudent care for our own futures and the futures of our families. It is true that he does call some to make this offering in more literally ways. Yet all of us can follow the widow in this: after giving away her two coins she had no choice but to rely on the providence of God to sustain her. We too are called to use the coins of love of God and love of neighbor in a fashion that is only possible if God is there to catch and sustain us.
These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.
They have been ransomed as the first fruits
of the human race for God and the Lamb.
The widow was free to follow the Lamb. Her course was not dictated by the apparent necessities of the world. She trusted that to give her money to God meant more than anything else she could do with it. When the Lamb ransoms us it frees us from the control that created things have over us. Where human circumstances might have tempted us to moan and lament, this freedom that comes from the Lamb inspires instead a new hymn that the world cannot learn.
They were singing what seemed to be a new hymn before the throne,
before the four living creatures and the elders.
No one could learn this hymn except the hundred and forty-four thousand
who had been ransomed from the earth.
We are not called to live imprudently. But we are called to trust God recklessly. There is no tension here. And when we discover that we will find our lives already beginning to resonate with the new music of this song of victory.
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