Third Sunday of Lent

CLEANSING THE TEMPLO

Jesus action in cleansing the temple was a protest against the commercialisation of religion and desecration of the Temple. But it went deeper. It was a symbolic action, in the fashion of an Old Testament prophet (Jer 7:11; Mal 3.1), through which he passed judgement on the Jewish sacrificial system. He was declaring that temple worship, with its ritual and animal sacrifices, was irrelevant and could do nothing to bring people to God. He was replacing sacrificial worship with spiritual worship.

He was also protesting at the way religion had become narrow, nationalistic, and exclusive. Israel had failed to fulfil her universal mission to humankind. It was God´s intention that the Temple should be a house of prayer “for all nations”. But the Temple remained the jealously- guarded preserve of Israel. No Gentile dare to venture, under threat of penalty and death, beyond what was known as the “court of the Gentiles”. Jesus declared that salvation was not just for the Jews, but for all peoples.

The first reading is one of the two versions of the Decalogue (the other is Deut 5: 6-21). The Ten Commandments are a map of life for a people who enjoy a special relationship with God. They were to be seen as a gift, not a burden. However, Christians must not live by the Ten Commandments but by the “law” of Jesus. He brought in a new and more exacting law- the law of love. He effectively reduced the commandments to two: love of God and love of neighbour.