The Circus King

There was a hush after he said it. Shouts and whispers stilled. The jaws of some clenched tightly with anger; others were silenced in awe. An explosion had become safe and sacred, and the meaning of it all was still falling into place. Every ear still echoed with his words, resounding so loudly that only a few noticed the lonely clink of one last coin, whose wobbly rolling came to a decided end in the corner of the room.

We felt as though we could hear him breathe. In, then out. The angry ones squinted fiercely, daggers in their eyes. In again, and then they fled. Swishing fabric, the muffled slap of sandals on bare floor, and a single thump as one of them dropped a bag of silver: they were gone.

He breathed in again, and then the silence began to bubble—not yet with words but with the quiet giggles of children, the exhale of the freed, and more swishing cloaks as the rest of those there gathered in.

The place still lay in shambles. Tables and benches were overturned. Coins had been spilled everywhere. Bits of parchment and broken wood were scattered clumsily over the floor, interrupted here and there by pieces of frayed rope, tufts of wool, soft feathers, and empty money bags.

But the crowd didn’t seem to care. For once in their lives, they weren’t here to observe the room’s starchy beauty or to ponder what it’d be like to be on the other side of those tables, wearing linen robes and making the rules since you, after all, were the only ones who could see God. They weren’t here to fear whether their measly sums would be enough to buy their own pardon, nor were they here to be told what other long list of infirmities kept them this time from being really clean.

No, they were here because the prophet from Nazareth let them in. 

“It is written,” he had said, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.’”¹ The surly, teeth-clenched moneychangers had to leave; and the blind, the lame, and the outcasts were welcomed in.

Pretty soon the children were singing. A once-lame beggar was running in circles with his hands in the air. A once-blind man was running his fingers over the holy curtains, wondering at the colors and textures that illuminated his eyes. It seemed like the sound of laughter changed the heavy smell of incense into a reminder not of boundaries but of praise.

They had the place as theirs for awhile, until the noses of the priests came poking their way in. Shuffling around the edges of the rabble, they inserted their questions with disdain. “Do you hear what these children are saying?² ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’? What is this?”

“Yes, I hear them,” he replied. He picked up one of the children at his feet and set him proudly on his lap, brushing back the thick mop of hair so he could peer into the little one’s eyes. “Have you never read, ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?”³

Some more shuffling was paired with discontented grunts. They huddled together away from the troubling Rabbi, and the crowd filled in the place they left.

Pretty soon the work was done, and the Rabbi made his way out. The rabble followed. Silence filled the room again as the muttering priests and teachers realized their “problem” had walked out the door. Alone with the tables and piles of coins, they glared into the darkening night, watching him go. Beneath their furrowed brows, they wondered how much longer this insult would insist on overturning their world.

But the crowd that left with the Rabbi had the feeling that the world was meant to be that way. Their Teacher had said it himself: “‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”⁴

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¹ Matthew 21:13 (NIV, 1984)

² Matthew 21:16a (ibid.)

³ Matthew 21:16b (ibid.)

⁴ Matthew 9:13 (ibid.)

Original Artwork by Miranda Dupree (2021). Artwork Quotations: Song lyrics from “The Greatest Show” (written by Ryan Lewis, Justin Paul, and Benj Pasek, 2017). Lyrics source: LyricFind.