The Journey of Lent

Details: 09 March 2012

The Cleansing

One of the striking actions that our Savior took in His sacred ministry on earth was His cleansing of the temple. This action of Jesus is recorded in all four Gospels (John 2:13-25; Matthew 21:12-17; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-48). In the present Lenten liturgical cycle we are scheduled to hear next Sunday the account of the event as recorded by Saint John, an account which Pope Benedict XVI thinks might be more "chronologically accurate" than that in the Synoptics, "notwithstanding the profoundly theological character of the material". In reply to the question by the "Jews" of what kind of sign our Lord could show that He had authority to drive out the cattle dealers, turn over the tables of the money changers, and chase out of the Court of the Gentiles the dove and pigeon sellers, Jesus reiterated, in similar words to His famous "sign of Jonah" (Matthew 12:38-42), His foretelling His resurrection: "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up!" Saint John notes that "He was speaking about the temple of His Body" and after His resurrection "His disciples remembered that He had said this..."

Of course, they were not the only ones to remember. At Christ’s trial, Saint Mark tells us of the false witness who accused Jesus of saying: "I will destroy this temple that is made with hands and in three days I will build another not made with hands." Pope Benedict guesses that this "witness comes close to Jesus’ accurate words, but is mistaken in one crucial point: It is not Jesus Who destroys the temple, but it is those who turn it into a den of robbers and who abandon it to destruction just as in (the Prophet) Jeremiah’s day." Our Holy Father observes that Jesus’ sign of His authority is His cross and resurrection. His dying and rising "gave Him authority as the One Who ushers in true worship. Jesus justifies Himself through His passion, the sign of Jonah that He gives to Israel and to the world... The disciples understood this in its full depth only after the resurrection, in their memory, in the collective memory of the community of disciples enlightened by the Holy Spirit, that is, in the Church."

The Supreme Pontiff remarks, "The rejection and crucifixion of Jesus means at the same time the end of this temple. The era of temple is over. A new worship has been introduced in a temple not built by human hands. This temple is Christ’s Body. It is the risen One Who gathers the peoples and unites them in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. He Himself is the new temple of humanity. The crucifixion of Jesus is at the same time the destruction of the old temple. With His resurrection a new way of worshipping God begins, no longer on this or that mountain, but "in spirit and truth" (John 4:23)." Jesus clearly foretold the final destruction of the temple (Matthew 24:1-2) and His prophecy about this was symbolized in fact and validated by God the Father when He died. "The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom" (Matthew 27:51; Mark 17:38).

The Temple

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us of the special love for the temple during His life on earth that Jesus enjoyed. "Like the prophets before Him, Jesus expressed the deepest respect for the temple in Jerusalem. It was to the temple that Joseph and Mary presented Him forty days after His birth (Luke 2:22-39). At the age of twelve He decided to remain in the temple to remind His parents that He must be about His Father’s business (Luke 2:46-49). He went there each year during His hidden life, at least for Passover (Luke 2:41). His public ministry itself was patterned by His pilgrimages to Jerusalem for the great Jewish feasts ((John 2:13-14; 5:1; 7:1; 8:2; 10:22-23). Jesus went up to the temple as the privileged place of encounter with God. For Him the temple was the dwelling place of His Father, a house of prayer, and He was angered that its outer court had become a place of commerce (Matthew 21:13). After His resurrection, His Apostles retained their reverence for the temple (Acts of the Apostles 2:24; 3:1; 5:20-21)." As He hung dying on the cross, His temple prophecy, in its distorted form, was flung into His face as an insult by His enemies (Mark 14:57-58; Matthew 27:29-40). He was never hostile to the temple. Indeed, even one time He arranged a miracle for Saint Peter to pay the temple tax for both Himself and for Peter too (Matthew 17:23-26).

Pope Benedict XVI notes that, after Jesus cleansed the temple, "the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them" (Matthew 21:14). "In contrast to the cattle trading and money changing, Jesus brings His healing goodness. Saint Mark tells us that, after He cleansed the temple, He taught in the temple (Mark 11:17-18). This is the true cleansing of the temple. Jesus does not come as a destroyer. He does not come bearing the sword of a revolutionary. He comes with the gift of healing. He turns towards those who, because of their afflictions, have been driven to the margins of life and society".

Zeal

At the time of Christ, there existed among the Jews in the Holy Land a movement called the "Zealot Movement". It evidently had to do with plotting political revolution. Although one of Christ’s Apostles, Simon, "was called the Zealot" (Luke 6:15), there is every indication that Jesus with His whole ministry and message was radically different from that moment. Perhaps Simon at one time had been part of the Zealot Movement, but after being called to discipleship by Jesus, his life took a different turn. Saint John notes that after the temple cleansing Christ’s disciples remembered Psalm 69, with its words "Zeal for Your house has eaten me up!" This is part of the great passion Psalm, which relates that the psalmist is living according to God’s word, and this loyalty to God causes him to have to live in isolation and suffering. The temple cleansing has nothing to do with violence, although some modern revolutionary movements such as "liberation theology" sometimes try to use what Jesus did in the temple to try to justify their false ideologies.

The temple itself, we know was destroyed in the year 70 A.D. in the course of the Roman repression of a Jewish revolt against Roman domination. Under Vespasion and later his son, Titus, the temple building that Jesus experienced and spoke about was completely ruined. Later in a subsequent revolt against Rome, even the temple ruins were utterly destroyed by the Emperor Hadrian. He built a new city called "Aelia Capitolina" where Jerusalem had been, and where the temple had been Hadrian put up a pagan temple dedicated to the Roman god Jupiter. Hadrian then forbade all Jews under pain of death to enter where Jerusalem once had been. It was only centuries later under the Emperor Constantine that Jews were again permitted to go there, but only once year, and only to grieve at the remaining wall fragment of the original temple mount, which place is still a sacred Jewish shrine even to this day. Jesus Christ is the living temple of the New Testament and He allows us to share in that glory. Thus, Saint Paul tells us that we are the temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 John 3:24). In each Lent let us ask Jesus to cleanse anew these temples which we are!