March 3: Third Sunday of Lent
John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
In ancient Israel, people sacrificed animals to God to atone for their sins and to mend their relationship with God. This emphasis on external rituals to practice one’s faith was in keeping with the need to follow the myriad complexities of Jewish law in Old Testament times. If you recall, there are many instances in the New Testament where the scribes and the Pharisees ask Jesus about some aspect of Jewish law in an effort to trip him up, because the Law was what was considered important in their worship of God.
I wonder if Jesus’ actions in the temple of driving out the animals, pouring out the coins of the money changers and overturning their tables in today’s gospel reading was, in part, a way for him to condemn this emphasis on sacrifice and focusing on the externals of one’s faith in order to receive God’s forgiveness. I wonder if referring to his own body as the temple of God was a way for him to tell us that it is his ways, his thoughts, his love that is important as a means to foster our relationship with God. I wonder too if Jesus was telling us that we receive forgiveness from God not by external sacrifice and rituals, but by uniting ourselves with Him. After all, he is perfect Love and forgiveness, and by accepting his perfect Love into our hearts, we know that we are forgiven and made whole.
This Lenten season, how are we allowing Jesus to cleanse out the temple of our spirits so as to open ourselves to the new life that Easter brings?