John 2:13 - 25
Each of the four gospels contains an account of Jesus “cleansing the temple”. But although the episode certainly took place, there are two problems. We don’t know exactly what Jesus was doing this for, and we don’t know why each gospel writer wants us to pay attention to the episode. Naturally that has resulted in an enormous amount of ink being spilled by theologians.
When we think about the first question, it seems obvious that Jesus is inviting trouble from the authorities, but that his action isn’t going to change anything. One of the major purposes of the temple was to offer sacrifices to God. There was no other legitimate place for a Jewish person to offer sacrifice. If you go into the old Testament you will find a long list of sacrifices that are to be offered for certain sins, or in thanksgiving, or to accompany prayers for some event. And good Jews made it a point to get to Jerusalem as often as possible to offer sacrifices. But this became a burden if you lived a long way away. So on those rare occasions when you did make the journey, you would bring money. The temple was a full service religious center. You could get your money changed into temple money, which did not have images on it or blasphemous phrases like “Divine Caesar”. And once you had the temple money you could buy an animal or two to be sacrificed, knowing that the animal had been pre-approved by the priests. Only “unblemished” animals were acceptable to God. So the whole system worked. A lot of imagination goes into depicting the situation. In movies people are yelling and animals are braying and there is lots of noise and clinking of coins. However, none of the gospels record that sort of thing; for all we know it might have been very peaceful and reverent. So Jesus disrupts all this.
Now the key to the event is that the authorities don’t say, “Stop doing that or I’m calling the police!” They say, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” In other words, “We know you are performing a prophetic act, but what is the message?” If you go back and read some of the prophets, that was the general thing; they would do something that would attract everyone’s attention, and then would explain what the action signified. And all the gospels record the words “My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it into a marketplace” – or words similar to that. Now the interesting thing is that each gospel writer uses this statement in a different way. John gives us a hint here, when he quotes Jesus as saying “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Jesus doesn’t say that in the other three gospels. And John comments that Jesus was talking about the temple of his body, which only became clear to the apostles after he was raised up.
The temple was considered the dwelling place of God on earth. Jesus proved himself God when he rose from the dead. So I guess you can see how Jesus is the new temple. But there is another passage in John, not in the other gospels, which to a first century Jew would drive home this comparison. You can imagine the temple, especially during the Passover season when tourists from all over were coming with their sacrifices. Priests would be slaughtering animals one after the other; the blood would be drained, because some of the sacrifice would be burned, but most would be given to the priests and temple attendants as sort of a payment for service; and out of this some would be distributed to the poor. So the meat had to be without blood, it had to be kosher, if it was going to be consumed. What happened to all the blood? I was collected in a kind of drainage system, in which water diverted from a natural spring was flowing. The temple stood on the side of a valley and the water and blood would flow out from the side of the temple. John tells us, and he is the only one who does so, that blood and water flowed from Jesus’ side after he was pierced by the soldier after his crucifixion.
Jesus is the temple of God on this earth. Jesus is present in the Blessed Sacrament, body and blood, soul and divinity. That makes our churches the dwelling place of God in a secondary sense. But most importantly for you and I, it makes us, when we receive the Holy Eucharist, the special presence of God in the world. The sinless Mother of God fully consented to God dwelling within her, and out of that consent God entered the world and changed history forever. The more we get out of the way, the more we say, “let it be done to me according to your word,” the more will Jesus be conceived in us, the more we will become what we are supposed to be -- the dwelling place of God on earth, because Jesus lives in us.
During lent, think about the Eucharist, think about his great mystery, think about what
It means every time you receive the Body and Blood of Jesus, and pray that as he did with Mary, God will give us the grace to bring Jesus’ presence into our world.
