Happy Sunday!
DOCTRINE AND FAITH(Exodus 20, 1-17; 1 Cor. 1,22-25;
John 2, 13-25: 3rd
Sunday of Lent, 7th March, 2021)
On this Sunday the liturgy offers us the Decalogue in the first reading; in the second reading Paul leads us in meditating on Christ crucified, the power and wisdom of God; the Gospel is that of the expulsion of the vendors from the temple. Jesus shows his respect for the house of God, which is the house of his Father, and says: Do not make my Father's house a market place;
In the Decalogue, God begins by remembering that he brought his people out
of the land of Egypt, and thereby bringing the very great benefits he brought
to his people to focus. At the basis of all the Decalogue there is God’s
generosity, which the Decalogue tries to spread in our life. Above all, we must
respect God, be full of profound respect for him, recognising him as the only
Lord. This is why all false cults, the cults of idols, must be rejected. We easily subject ourselves to idols. In
particular, money can become an idol that acquires more importance in our
existence than God himself. In the Gospel, Jesus overturns the banks of the
money changers and says: Do not make my Father's house a market place.
Thus it indicates that the idol must be rejected with the greatest firmness.
This teaching of Jesus is always relevant, not only for individuals, but also
for communities and entire societies which, unfortunately, are often founded on
the search for money and power, rather than on the search for justice, peace
and love.
Jesus asks us not to have any idol, and during Lent we must examine ourselves
to see if in our lives we have idols, that is, realities to which we worship
and to which we unduly subject ourselves. At the end of his First Letter, John
tells us: Children, beware of false gods! (1
John 5,21). The idol is an evil that always threatens our existence and
prevents us from living a beautiful life, in justice, in peace and in love. In
the Decalogue the first commandments concern the relationship with God, the
other the relationship with the neighbour. The Decalogue expresses the indispensable
conditions for being in a positive relationship with God. It is not possible
to live in communion with him if we do not respect him and the rights of our
brothers. He who kills, commits adultery, steals, gives false
witness and whoever has bad desires cannot be in a good relationship with God.
We are made to live in communion with God. This vocation of ours is a wonderful
reality, which we must know how to appreciate. In fact, there is nothing in the
world that can have the same importance. Communion with God and being in tune
with his love are the most important things in our existence. For Jesus,
communion with God is the fundamental reality. He lives completely for the
Father, always does the Father's will and tries to spread the Father's love.
For this reason, as we see in today's Gospel episode, he also spreads respect
for the house of the Father.
The zeal of your house devours me. The disciples use these words of the psalm to interpret Jesus' gesture of purifying the house of God. It is a very risky gesture. In fact, it immediately exposed the hostility of the religious authorities, and also other people whose interests are jeopardised. But Jesus does not hesitate: seeing people in the temple, who sell, he makes a whip of cords and drives everyone out of the temple, saying: Do not make my Father's house a market place. Our lives must be lived not in the pursuit of things only to our advantage and profit, but in generosity. We must always remember these Jesus’ strong words, to reject the temptations, so frequent, to make our soul, which is God's house, a market place, and, therefore, to live in the continuous search for our interests, rather than living in generous love of God. The Jews ask Jesus to give an account of his gesture, they, therefore, ask him for a sign of his authority: What sign are you showing us to do these things? In fact, to take care of the house of God thus, one must have a particular authority. Jesus replies with a mysterious phrase: Destroy this sanctuary and in three days I will make it rise again. Note that the term used in Greek to say sanctuary, naos, is different from the one used to say temple, hieron. When it is said that Jesus found people in the temple who sold oxen, sheep and doves, it is obvious that it is not the building of the temple (naos, sanctuary), but the courtyards. The temple of Jerusalem, in fact, included a sacred building and large courtyards, in which it was possible to teach and do various activities, and in which there were also houses for the priests. Instead, the sanctuary was the sacred building, which included two parts: The Holy and the Holy of Holies, in which one could not enter freely. Only priests could enter the sanctuary and only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies once a year. The sanctuary was truly a sacred building. It was not like an actual church, which is made to welcome the Lay faithful together with the priests who celebrate Mass, but it was reserved for priests and for the worship of God. Jesus declares: Destroy this sanctuary and in three days I will make it rise again. Obviously, these made the Jews to be surprised, and they replied him: This sanctuary was built in forty-six years [it was the sanctuary rebuilt by Herod the Great] and in three days will you raise it up? But the evangelist explains that Jesus spoke of the sanctuary of his body. Here Jesus refers to his paschal mystery: the destruction of the sanctuary and the reconstruction of another, very different sanctuary. This prediction of Jesus will be taken up again in the account of the passion. During the trial, before the Sanhedrin, the only accusation, according to the Gospels, that was brought against Jesus was that of having said: I will destroy this temple made by human hands and in three days I will build another not made by hands of man (Mark 14,58 and ff.). This is a false accusation, because Jesus did not say to the Jews: I will destroy it ..., but: Destroy this sanctuary.... He had predicted the ruin of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple and the sanctuary, but he did not say that he would be the architect. Even when Jesus is on the cross, passersby, to mock him, say: Hey, you who destroy the sanctuary and rebuild in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross! (Mark 15,29-30). At the moment of Jesus' death the veil of the sanctuary is torn. It is an announcement of the destruction of the sanctuary. This does not happen immediately, but some years after the death of Jesus. But it was inevitable that it would happen. In this episode, therefore, we are confronted with Jesus’ paschal mystery, which can be summarised in the phrase he says to the Jews: Destroy this sanctuary and in three days I will make it rise again. The true sanctuary is the sanctuary of the body of Jesus. The evangelist comments: When then [Jesus] was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word Jesus said. During Lent we prepare to live, intensely, Jesus’ paschal mystery, to remember that Jesus, who is the true sanctuary of God, was rejected by men and killed. But God's love prevailed, because God transformed this unjust and cruel event into an opportunity for victory over evil and death.
In the second reading Paul declares: We preach Christ crucified,
scandal for the Jews, foolishness for the pagans; but for those who are called,
both Jews and Greeks, we preach Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. The
paschal mystery manifests the power and wisdom of God and, even more, his
love: God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son (John 3,16). Jesus loved us and
gave himself up to death for us, to introduce us into a relationship of
communion with God. Therefore, if we want to reach God, we must be members of
the body of Christ, we must be living stones of the sanctuary of God, who is
Christ (cf., 1 Peter 2,1-10). This is our vocation. We must participate in the
paschal mystery of Christ with our lives: life of generous love,
rejection of idols, search for justice and peace and growth in love +John I. Okoye
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