First reading: Ex. 20:1–17

In those days, God delivered all these commandments: “I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me. You shall not carve idols for yourselves in the shape of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters beneath the earth; you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments. 

“You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain. For the LORD will not leave unpunished the one who takes his name in vain. 

“Remember to keep holy the sabbath day. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD, your God. No work may be done then either by you, or your son or daughter, or your male or female slave, or your beast, or by the alien who lives with you. In six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

“Honor your father and your mother, that you may have a long life in the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male or female slave, nor his ox or ass, nor anything else that belongs to him.”

Second reading: 1 Cor. 1:22–25

Brothers and sisters: Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Gospel: Jn. 2:13–25

Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. 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 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. 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.”
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 had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.

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.

In other words

by Fr. Antonio Pernia, SVD (Divine Word Seminary, Tagaytay City)

The story of Jesus’ “cleansing of the temple” in Jerusalem is found in all four gospels. But while the three synoptic gospels place this episode toward the end of Jesus’ public ministry, i.e., just before his passion and death, John places it at the beginning.

Most scholars believe that the synoptic gospels have the correct timing. This episode took place toward the end of Jesus’ public ministry. Indeed, it led to Jesus’ arrest, condemnation, and Crucifixion. Violating the Sabbath, not observing the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law, and criticizing the Pharisees and other religious leaders—these were all unacceptable but still tolerable. But desecrating the temple, which was the heart and soul of the Jewish religion, this was simply intolerable. Jesus simply had to be gotten rid of.

The reason why we read the version of John, and not that of the synoptic gospels, is the theology that lies behind John’s version.

As the synoptic gospels narrate the story, Jesus is described as accusing the people who were selling and buying in the temple of having made the temple a “den of thieves”—in other words, a hideout for crooks. This implies that Jesus had uncovered abuses in the system of the temple worship, ways that people were being cheated. But the way John tells the story, Jesus does not speak about robbers or crooks. He is upset that his Father’s house has become a place of business, a “marketplace.” This means that Jesus was upset with the system itself, and not just with some abuses of the system—upset, in other words, with the custom of temple worship through animal sacrifice.

Jesus had come into the world to make God available to people in a whole new way. Jesus’ very body is the new location for God, the new place where people could meet God. In other words, the new temple, God’s new dwelling place, was Jesus himself.

What frustrated Jesus about the business of the Jerusalem temple was that the temple had gotten in the way of people recognizing him as the new dwelling place of God. Everyone had gotten used to the money, the animals, and the rituals of sacrifice that they could not see the new thing that God was doing in Jesus. And so, in John’s gospel, Jesus subsequently spends the rest of his life overturning things—things that prevented people from encountering God and receiving God’s abundant life, as Jesus was offering it to the world.

We, the Church, are the body of Christ. We, too, as Church, are the new temple, the new dwelling place of God, the new place for people to encounter God. But, are we really? Or does our way of life get in the way of people encountering God and receiving God’s offer of new life? What are those things in our lives that need to be overturned, like the tables in the temple, so that we may truly be the Body of Christ, God’s new dwelling place?