Cleansing the Temple....cleansing our life!
Cleansing the Temple....cleansing our life!
Lent is a season of renewal and entering a deeper relationship with God and one another. In year B, Sunday's first readings take us on a pilgrimage to visit the covenant that God made with different people. First Sunday of Lent, we visited God’s covenant with Noah. Second Sunday we visited God’s Covenant with Abraham and Abraham proved his trust in God by his readiness to sacrifice his Son, Isaac.
Today, the third Sunday of Lent, we visit God’s covenant with his people in the desert under the leadership of Moses. They are liberated from slavery in Egypt and on the way to the Promised Land. God gave the Ten Commandments, or Decalogue (from Greek for ‘Ten Commandments’ or ‘ten words’). At the covenant of Mount Sinai, Israelites received the Ten Commandments and the first stage of revealed law of the Old Testament which served as a summary of moral law. Its precepts provided the fundamental moral law principles that correspond to the requirement of human dignity as a child of God. The fulfillment of the law is in Jesus. He taught, that all the commandments and moral law are based upon the Great Commandments: “You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind…You shall love your neighbor as yourselves” (Mat. 22:37, 39).
During Lent the Gospel reading takes us on the first Sunday to the desert, the second Sunday to the mountain top (Transfiguration), and the third Sunday to the Temple - a place of special encounter with God. Jesus is not happy with what he sees precisely because the way the Temple worship has been organized no longer reflects God’s original idea of a worshipping community.
The Passover was celebrated every spring to commemorate the Israelites' rescue from Egyptian slavery (Exodus 12). The central to the feast is a liturgical meal called Seder. During the seder, they retell the story of the Exodus, sing psalms, and a lamb is eaten with unleavened bread and other condiments.
In today’s Gospel we read “The Passover of the Jews was at hand…” (John 2:13). Jews came from all over the world, and they had to bring animals with them for the sacrifice. The law required that the animal of the sacrifice should be perfect, otherwise it will be rejected. Since people came from a distance, they bought animals for sacrifice in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Temple was divided into several courts. The outmost court is open for the gentile pilgrims and the same space is used for selling animals and money exchange.
The Gospel reading gives a dramatic account of Jesus' cleansing of the Temple. Jesus’s action in the Temple is acted out prophesy, and his words are prophetic proclamation. Jesus was driving out the merchants from the church to make the Temple a marketplace. John 2:17 says his disciples remembered Psalm 69:9, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Jesus, burning with righteous indignation, is outraged that business dealings have taken the place of prayer in the temple court. In those days, part of the Temple was the marketplace, but they started to dominate or take over. On the other side of Jesus' action, he proclaims the end time of the merchants in the Temple area. No more animal sacrifice is going to take place in the Temple. Jesus challenged the critics to destroy, not this sacred building, but his own body. Jesus makes clear the rebuilding of the Temple about his resurrection. But his words were used against him when he was arrested.
In the second reading, Paul tells us that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. The message of the cross is God’s wisdom and power.
In Lent, we are in a cleaning process of our life through prayer, penance, and almsgiving. The question is where are you in this journey? Did we start cleaning, or not yet? Jesus wants to make a new covenant with us in this Lenten season. Pope Francis says in his Lenten Message, that God leads us through the desert to freedom. May our Lenten journey prepare our hearts to celebrate Holy Week with a renewed heart and mind.