The Temple

3^rd Sunday of Lent

March 8, 2015

John 2:13-25

“Zeal for your house will consume me (John 2:17).”

 

The Temple of Jerusalem was the most sacred place for the Israelites. There, the God of Israel chose to dwell rather than any other place (cf. Psalm 78:68). There, the Jewish people gathered from all over the land to encounter their Lord. The Temple was the unifying symbol of Jewish identity, their pride and their precious possession. Jesus Himself called the Temple as His Father’s house (cf. 2:49).

However, the holy place had been profaned. Sadly, the desecration was the work of the Jewish religious authority itself. The Temple had been manipulated in order to gain financial benefits and to advance personal and political agenda of several persons. By allowing the temple’s court to be turned into a commercial district, they surely earned a lot. By legislating laws that required ordinary Jews to buy animal’s sacrifice and to purchase special currency from those ‘licensed’ vendors, they oppressed their fellow countrymen. By allegedly bribing the Roman officials, they cunningly maintained their position and power. Thus, rightly, Jesus was angered that His Father's house had become a marketplace and den of thieves.

The Gospel then narrated how Jesus, consumed by the holy zeal, drove out the vendors and confronted the religious leaders. As the Jews questioned His authority, Jesus told them to destroy the Temple and He would rebuild it in three days. Yet, John further explained that the Temple is actually Jesus own body. We learn now that the holy of holies in Israel is no longer the Temple, but Jesus’ body. This is why we, Christians, no longer go up to Jerusalem, but we march to the churches where the Body and Blood of Christ are made present in the Holy Eucharist.

Since we are baptized and become the members of Christ’ body, we participate also in this holy Temple of Jesus. In fact, St. Paul reminded us that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 6:19). We are made sacred because the Holy Spirit chooses to dwell in us. But, the real question is: do we treat our own temple as the home of the Holy Spirit? Today’s Gospel actually tells us a symbolic action of Christ in us because often, we fill our own temple not with the Holy Spirit but with something else.

Like the temple of Jerusalem, our own temple is also the center of our lives and what is inside, practically governs our attitudes towards ourselves and others. Do we allow money to occupy it, so that our priority is to accumulate wealth as many as possible and sometimes in the expense of our relationship with God, family and friends? Do we place pride, prestige and career in our temple, and thus we work hard to climb the ladder of success, to the point of wearing ourselves out? Do we insert anger and bitterness in our core, so that we only see others enemies to destroy and life as huge problem?

The number one problem of Jewish people in the Old Testament was idolatry. God demanded fidelity to Himself, yet the people veered towards themselves and small gods they created. Pope Francis in his encyclical Lumen Fidei wrote, “Idols exist, we begin to see, as a pretext for setting ourselves at the center of reality and worshiping the work of our own hands (LF 13).” Therefore, why Jesus got zealous at the Temple was not only because the commercialization of the holy ground, but primarily because of idolatry. They have changed the living God with their little and insignificant own gods in the heart of the Temple.

This Lenten season is the opportune time for all of us to examine what is inside our temple. We might be surprised that what in center is not God at all. Then, we need to do something, before Jesus comes and get furious at us, telling us, “My house shall be a house of prayer,' but you are making it a den of thieves (Mat 21:13).”

Br. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP