Third Sunday in Lent 2024

John 2,13-22

Rev. Neli Miranda 

Today’s gospel begins by telling us that Jesus went up to Jerusalem to the celebration of Passover. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus celebrated three Passovers in Jerusalem, and it is in the first celebration when Jesus enters the Temple, liberates, and cleanses it from the corruption that was taking place there.  By including this event at the beginning of the Gospel, John seeks to establish Jesus’ authority and his mission.

John does not give us many details about Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem but immediately places him in the temple where, instead of finding a place of worship, he finds “people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables” (2,14). Jesus and his disciples had left Galilee and traveled many miles to Jerusalem to worship God in the temple; however, upon their arrival, they found that the sacred place had been coopted by the ruling economic class in Jerusalem. As a prophet of God, Jesus makes a whip out of cords and drives out all the merchants, the sheep, the cattle, and the doves. He also scatters the money changers’ coins and overturns their tables. Can you envision this scene? All the merchants and the animals together leaving the sacred temple? What a powerful prophet has entered the temple!

Why are animals and money changers even present in the temple? Animals were sold to be sacrificed, and the money changers were there to convert the varied currencies used at that time into the accepted currency to pay the temple taxes. Some Bible scholars mention that Jesus was reacting to the cheating practice of the money changers; others also say that the temple was somewhat like a “bank” where the wealthy could loan money to the poor who were at risk of losing their land due to debts. In any case, it is obvious that the authorities of the temple cooperated with the economic aristocracy that exploited the poor!

Some see the liberation of the temple a violent act; however, it was a significant, prophetic act where Jesus, like the prophets of the Old Testament, performs a prophetic deed to denounce the corruption existing in the Temple. Jesus denounces the actions adding “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace” (2,16). By liberating and cleansing the temple, Jesus confronts corruption and commercialization in the temple, and the ruling authorities (mostly priests) who profited from it.

Faced with Jesus’ act, the authorities in Jerusalem question him by asking, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” (2,18).  Referring to the temple of his body, and using metaphorical language, Jesus answers, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (2,19). Jesus’ opponents do not understand his words, so referring to the temple in Jerusalem they ask, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” (2,20). They cannot understand that Jesus is foretelling his crucifixion and resurrection. His body, his temple, will be destroyed through crucifixion, but he will be raised up in three days. His death and resurrection will be the sign of the coming era, a time when God will dwell among the people, surpassing an earthly temple. Jesus is the Temple of God among humans!

Today’s gospel makes us reflect that many Christians are tempted today to turn God’s house into a marketplace that serves their own purposes, not God’s. What would Jesus say if he came to our place of worship today?  Could we understand Jesus’ message about his coming death and resurrection?

Dear sisters and brothers, may Jesus, who today arrives in our places of worship, find us committed and faithful to God’s will, not to earthly interests. May our hearts be a cleansed temple where the divine presence dwells. May our bodies be the temple, the house of God.  And, as we continue our Lenten journey, may we be committed to Jesus’ way and envision the end of this journey as the beginning of a new era, a glorious moment of resurrection.

Amen.