Third Sunday of Lent (B)

March 4, 2018

Readings:

First Reading – Exodus 20: 1-17

Psalm 19

Second Reading – 1 Corinthians 1: 22-25

Gospel reading according to John (2: 13-25)

+

Homily:  Cleansing of the Temple

This time, Jesus, now with his disciples, went up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.  “Since the Passover was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem” (John 2: 13).  While going there, maybe he recalled his younger years when his parents, Joseph and Mary, brought him in the Temple of Jerusalem, and he was very excited.  For the first time, he saw the Temple, the House of his Father.  Upon reaching Jerusalem, he saw from afar the splendor of the Temple.  It was shining in the distance when the rays of the sun touched it, for it was covered with pure gold and white paint outside.  It was beautiful at the sight of young Jesus at age 12 years old then.  But, when they reached Jerusalem and entered the Temple inside, he was dismayed to what he witnessed.  The Temple was flooded with blood of different animals and there were lots of slaughtered cows, bulls, oxen, goats, sheep, and birds (doves), etc. scattered on the floor waiting to be burnt as offerings on the altar.  While the priests’ clothes like butchers were full of blood spilled from the animals expurgated throat and gathered them in containers (basins) to be poured out also in the burning altar together with the flesh of dead animals as sacrificial and sin offerings. He did not see God in that temple with stench and stink due to dead animals and flooded with blood and its excrement instead of a House of prayer and meeting place with the Lord God.

Now, he was in his thirties (more or less 33 years old, after 20 years), he returned to Jerusalem to attend and participate in the Passover celebration, or Pesach.  (Passover (/ˈpɛsɑːx, ˈpeɪsɑːx/; from Hebrew פֶּסַח Pesah, Pesakh), is an important, biblically derived Jewish holiday. Jews celebrate Passover as a commemoration of their liberation by God from slavery in ancient Egypt and their freedom as a nation under the leadership of Moses. Celebrates The Exodus, the freedom from slavery of the Children of Israel from ancient Egypt that followed the Ten Plagues)    (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passover). Yet, this time, “he found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as money changers seated there” (John 2: 14).  Instead of remembering being freed and liberated from slavery of the Egyptians, now they have new Pharaoh and Egyptians who made them slaves.  Instead of people praying and worshipping God in the Temple, he found like a market place were animals are being sold to the buyers (worshippers).  They cannot buy animals outside the temple, only animals in the temple they can offer.  To buy animals or doves in the temple and if they have unacceptable or foreign money, they have to change their foreign money to the money changers in the temple area, even though the exchange rate is higher than in the black market.  Who owns these animals and doves to be offered in the temple?  And, who are the owners of temple money and the money changers?  If it is not the Sanhedrin, the elders, the leaders, the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees were the owners of those animals to be sold to the poor people and from foreign currencies are to be changed to the temple money from the hired money changers of those leaders in the temple.  The poor people were cheated by higher prices of the animals and doves, and manipulated by high exchange rate charged by the elders.  The leaders of the temple are stealing the few coins of the poor widows and sick men and women.  They turned and made the Temple of the Lord God “into den of thieves” (cf. other related gospels; Mark 11:17, Isaiah 56:6-7, Jeremiah 7:11).  This is also happening in our times.  The tribal people were stolen their ancestral domains by buying with small amount of money, some tribal people were considered Communists if not enemies of the State if they defended and fought for their rights of ownership; in the city, the households are paying the electricity bills and gasoline in a continuous increasing rate, mass transportation is not serving well, prices of commodities are getting higher and higher, the capitalists’ excuse is that the imported raw materials are bought in dollars; if they have works, salaries and wages of employees are not enough to commensurate the needs of their families, rampant war on drugs and extra-judicial killings in the streets; if working abroad, OFWs were not receiving just salary, passports were taken from them so that they cannot leave their houses or country, and maltreatment received and even death from their employers, and many other forms of corruptions, mistreatment, stealing from the poor (Anawim of Yahweh), oppressed and marginalized.  “He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold the doves he said: ‘Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace’. His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’.” (Psalm 68:10; John 2: 15-17).  Like a father whose children committed sins is correcting his children by whipping to mark in their heads what they had done, so also Jesus Christ who made a whip to disperse those sellers and money changers who were cheating the poor who can only afford to buy a dove, to offer to God, in the Temple.  The dove is the poor woman and man’s offering for sacrifice, while oxen, sheep and goats are rich woman and man’s offering.  Jesus single out the dove’s sellers because they were selling doves at high prices where the poor widow cannot afford to pay.  They were cheated and stolen their small coins.  At the same time, the money changers gave high exchange rate to their foreign coins because their foreign coins are not acceptable in the temple, only the temple coins are acceptable, so they have to change their coin in order to buy expensive dove owned by the leaders of the temple.  It is business rather than service to give worship and glory to God whom they thought living in the temple, but He is not in the Temple for the true Temple is in the individual’s heart. Jesus truly showed his respect and love not only to God but to anything related to God, even the Temple, of which the disciples remembered the Scripture in relation to what Jesus did in the temple area.

“At this the Jews answered and said to him ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’  Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up’.” (John 2: 18-19).  The Jews which were composed of the elders and leaders of the temple came out and confronted Jesus for what he had done in their businesses.  They lost big amount of money/capital, for their vendors and money changers did not go back to their places at the temple area after reporting to the Jews/Sanhedrin what had happened.  The Jews were asking Jesus a sign coming from heaven for Jesus was acting like a prophet of old, cleansing the House of the Lord full of filths and dirt.  Jesus gave them a sign, their attempted plan of killing Jesus as a form of destruction of the temple as the body of him whom they will punish, put to passion, death on the cross.  Yet, Jesus said it will triumph, it will resurrect, it will be back whole and entire, for “he will raise it up after three days.”  “The Jews said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?  But he was speaking about the temple of his body.  Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this, and they came to believe the Scriptures and the word of Jesus had spoken” (John 2: 20-22).  Jesus knew already what will happen to him from the hands of the elders and leaders in the temple.  It was clarified to him by Elijah and Moses on the mountain of Transfiguration, who and what will happen to him when he goes to Jerusalem.  And the disciples believed to what Jesus said after he was raised from the dead, as the sign he had given to the Jews in doing the cleansing of the Temple.        

What he did in the temple area made also other Jewish people (the poor, the sick, the possessed by evil spirits, the tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners) began to believe in Jesus Christ, that he was the Messiah (Kristus) of the living God because of the many signs he showed to them, but the elders and leaders of the temple did not recognize them (signs) nor believe him.  Because his time to die is not yet come, he can stay but not so long a time in Jerusalem, land of Judea.  “While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, many began to believe in his name when they saw the signs he was doing.  But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature.  He himself understood it well” (John 2: 23-25).  Nevertheless, Jesus did not rely on these many Jewish people.  He knew what they wanted – a warrior leader who will liberate them from the grasped of the foreign invaders (the Roman Empire) and from the leaders in the Temple – the Sanhedrin, for they knew only the humanity of Jesus, they were misguided; but Jesus alone knew who he himself really was.