3^rd SUNDAY OF LENT

 

Readings: Exodus 20:1-17

                 1Corinthians 1:22-25

                  John 2:13-25

 

 

“Take these out of here and stop making

my Father’s house a marketplace.”

 

 

            Rarely can we see Jesus explode into anger. Surprisingly, this happens at the temple. Today’s account which all the four gospels have recorded must be a reason for this outburst. Thus, we take this to be the center point of our reflection as we begin this third week of lent.

 

            1.         Let us begin with the setting of the event: the temple. The temple is a house of worship. All cults have a place of worship, regardless of how they call it. Thus, no one is unfamiliar about it. It is what religion and culture designate as a sacred place of encounter between the human and the divine. Even by its physical appearance, we know that it symbolizes the presence of the supernatural. But more so it is to the Jewish religion. Its temple origin traces back to that very moment when they were chosen as people of God, and its history goes along with their wandering forefathers until they become a settled people, a great and powerful nation indeed.

 

            Jesus has this Jewish understanding and respect of the temple. As a pious Jew, this is one of the places he does not forget to visit regularly even at his early age. But more than an ordinary Jew – or any human being for that matter – Jesus considers the temple as his Father’s house. And not just “Father” in the broad sense of the word, but as strictly as to mean his natural father. This special regard to his Father’s house is shown when, at his tender boyhood, he decides to stay at the temple without even notifying his earthly parents. This he does for he knows he is just doing the affairs of his father (cf Lk 2:41 ff). To do the affairs of the Father, therefore makes the temple worthy of its name. not to do them would be tantamount to making it just like any other place in the world.

 

            2.         This must be the reason why Jesus becomes terribly angry. He sees how people make the temple so unworthy of its name: treating a special place ordinary, making a holy place unholy, turning the place of worship into a marketplace, transforming the Father’s house into a den of thieves. In one word, desecration. But an important question must be asked: What does really desecrate the temple? The animals and the other things for sale? The money changing? Or something else much deeper?

 

            The Passover is a big celebration. It attacks not only the Jews in Israel, but also those in the Diaspora. The animals for sacrifice are not so much intended for the local Jews, but for those living outside Israel who usually bring nothing with them and just buy the things needed for worship in the temple precincts, using the temple money. Thus, the temple is full not only of pilgrims but of vendors and money changers. We can just imagine how topsy-turvy the temple must be. Literally, it looks no less than a market place. Physically, therefore, it is just that desecrating. But what really worsens the situation is the commercialization of the transactions that accompanies the temple worship. This seems to be “adding insult to injury,” as they say. Jesus knows so well that all those things are necessary, and thus they have to be there. They are in fact a big help to the Jews of the Diaspora. What ignites his religious outrage, therefore, is the opportunism of the temple people. They are just making money out of the situation. And worse, they use religion for their prophet motivated ends. In the final analysis, the physical set up of turning the temple into a marketplace is actually only a symptom of a more serious religious offense.

 

            3.         For all his life, Jesus has been preaching of an interior morality, of a religion that truly comes from the heart. That is why he cannot take so easily how the temple people themselves have tainted the blood of the sacrifice by the impurity of their hearts. Truly, theirs is a plain lip service, for their hearts are just so far from their God. So, the outrage at the temple becomes another opportunity for him to teach about his religion, and above all, about the new temple that shall rise after the resurrection. “’Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up…’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body.’”

 

            The Gospel of John has a peculiar stress especially in the first four chapters of his gospel. It talks often about replacement, that is, the old has to be replaced by a new one. Today’s narrative follows the same theme. And in this case, the old temple is to be replaced by a new temple. Jesus’ very words bespeak of it. After all, this has already been foretold. Jeremiah foresees that the old temple together with its worship shall be over (cf Jer 7). Such new temple shall be free from traders (cf Zech 14:21) and shall truly be a house of prayer for all the peoples (cf Is 56:7) where the name of the Lord shall be praised great from the rising of the sun to its setting (cf Mal 1:11). And all this shall take place with the coming of the Messiah (cf Tob 14:5-6). But as Jesus knows that this is bound to happen, he too realizes that he has to pay for it at the price of his own death. This temple must first be destroyed, for only then that it shall be raised in three days. So, as the religion that shall come wit it is a religion of the cross, it will surely be a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the gentiles. But for those who believe, that religion brings true worship in spirit and in truth (cf Jn 4:23-24). This, then, is the fulfillment of what Christ consistently preaches as the religion of the heart.

 

            4.         The practice of this true worship takes place not really exclusively in the temple building. For this new temple is that very church which is born at the side of Christ when he gave the last drop of his blood in Calvary. This church is rightly understood in the language of St. Paul as the mystical body of Christ. It is that body which comprises Christ as head and the members as its different parts. It is a community of believers gathered in the name of Christ, sharing a common mission entrusted to them by the savior. This mission consists in establishing the kingdom of God on earth, even as they joyfully wait for his second coming and hopefully look forward to its final fulfillment in heaven.

 

            This new worship brought about by the new religion lies, therefore, in the lively and continues encounter between the human and the divine right in the concrete situations of life. Thus, the place of God’s encounter with man and man’s encounter with God is not so much at the temple building as it is in the daily encounter with one’s neighbor. And while the temple sacrifices still retain their religious meaning at churches, they at the same time acquire a new significance in the light of the signs of the times. This means that fasting gets an added religious significance in the face of a hungry people, alms giving before the global problem of poverty and perhaps burnt offerings in the context of those countless victims of oppression and exploitation. After all, Christ himself is the first victim of such a sacrifice and continues to be a victim every time we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.