Walking to the Right or Left?

In Jesus’s time, people would travel once a year to the Temple. Rabbis tell us that those people would observe a certain pilgrim ritual in the huge courtyard of the Temple. When they went up all the steps to the Temple inner court’s gateway, a priest at the top would tell them, “Go to your right and walk around the courtyard that way to worship and praise the Lord, but if you’re grieving or feeling broken, go to the left.” 

So all the people who were feeling victorious and encouraged, or maybe faking it, would go to the right. All the people who were hurting and broken would go to the left, and tradition tells us that the people who chose to walk around the courtyards to the left were always lesser in number.  

Sometimes, the people walking around to the right would see the people walking the opposite direction, and they would break off from the crowd and stop to ask a person walking the other way, “Tell me what’s hurting you. Let me share your pain.”  

To break off from the crowd and help someone else is not an easy thing to do. Most of us don’t want to mess around with messed up people. We tend to think, “I got my profession, my nice home, my happy family, and all these other people are going the wrong way.” We want to stay in the crowd that is uplifting, but the Bible shows us that Jesus was one of those people who breaks away from the crowd to speak with the broken, the grieving. 

Today, do you need to go to the left? You have the comfort of knowing that Jesus is going to meet you, especially if you feel like the only one who’s grieving or you feel like everyone around you is celebrating and victorious. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:3-4, ESV).

Are you someone who can confidently go to the right? Praise God! With that, though, ask him who he wants you to stop and comfort. Keep your eyes open for those who have been forced by life to walk the other way.