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Friends, in today’s Gospel we see Jesus
cleansing the temple. What did it mean for a provincial prophet to come
into the holy city of Jerusalem and make a ruckus in the temple? Well,
you can probably imagine. To make matters worse, as we heard yesterday, Jesus
says something that is as shocking as his actions. He says, “I will
destroy this temple and in three days rebuild it.” No wonder that it was
precisely this act that led to his crucifixion.
So what was he doing
and why? First, in showing his lordship over even this most sacred
symbol, he was announcing who he was. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus acts
in the person of God. Secondly, he was instituting a new temple, the
temple of his crucified and risen body. Jesus himself is the place where
God dwells, and we in the measure that we are grafted on to him are
temples of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is passing judgment on all of the
inadequate, corrupt forms of human religion and is establishing the new and
eternal covenant, the new temple, in his own person.
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