Cleansing the temple
For John (2:13-25), the cleansing of the temple in Jerusalem by Jesus was such a fundamental statement by him that it deserved to be located theologically at the beginning of his public ministry, unlike the other evangelists who placed the event chronologically towards the conclusion of Jesus’ public activity. It was a dramatic announcement that Israel’s messianic expectations have been fulfilled.
Zeal for the Father’s house
THE works on the magnificent temple of Jerusalem with its profusion of gold and marble started by Herod the Great in 19 B.C. were already in their 46th year when the confrontation between Jesus and the temple authorities took place. The outer temple area surrounded by a colonnade had been turned to a frenetic marketplace: animals intended for sacrifice—oxen, sheep and doves— were for sale; money-changers were busy converting to the only accepted temple currency the various foreign currencies brought in by pilgrims to pay their temple tax. The bargaining and haggling, and the diddling and bilking going on must have filled the air in the temple area.
The temple of Jerusalem was at the center of the religious life of Israel. It was God’s dwelling place in the midst of His chosen people, a sign of divine election and protection. But it must also be a sign of the people’s fidelity to God’s covenant. The prophet Jeremiah described the contradiction of the people stealing, murdering, committing adultery and perjury, and going after strange gods, and yet coming to stand before Yahweh in His temple: “Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds...will I remain with you in this place...has this house which bears my name become in your eyes a den of thieves?” (Jeremiah 7:5.7.11). For Malachi (3:1-3), the inauguration of the messianic times would see the Lord’s sudden coming to the temple: “But who can stand when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire, or like the fuller’s lye. He will sit refining and purifying, and he will purify the sons of Levi.” Zechariah (14:21) too prophesied, “On that day there shall no longer be any merchant in the house of the Lord of hosts.”
Destroy this temple, I will raise it up
THE bold action of Jesus in throwing out the merchants and animals out of the temple precincts clearly claimed the fulfillment of the prophets’ words. Greed and hypocrisy have no place in “my Father’s house,” said Jesus as he commanded them out. Used 27 times in John’s gospel, “my Father’s house” means likewise the kingdom of eternal life (John 14:2); this relationship between the temple and heaven in eternity makes the commercialism and materialism in the temple of Jerusalem more abominable. His disciples later thought that “Zeal for your house consumes me” (Psalm 69:10) aptly described Jesus as he cleansed the temple made marketplace.
But in relation to Jesus, the temple points yet to another dimension as God’s dwelling place with the people. Challenged by the Jews who were asking for a sign that would validate his action, Jesus dared them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The temple of his body, where God is present to humankind and where man can be one with God, is now the only sign for anyone. No other sign can surpass the Paschal Mystery of the death and resurrection of the Son of God. His enemies would actually try to destroy the temple that is Jesus with the wood of the cross, but it was raised up in the glory of the resurrection. The glorified humanity of the risen Christ can die and be desecrated no more, an eternal temple of perfect worship to God.
Alálaong bagá, Jesus replaced the temple of Jerusalem and its liturgy with himself. In his glorified humanity in complete communion with God we have the definitive and primordial sacrament of our salvation. In baptism, redeemed by the Son and adopted by the Father, we have been sanctified as temples of the Holy Spirit. Then as now, any desecration of God’s temple courts purification, a Lenten task each one must undertake. As ever, the temple consecrated to God must be a living sign of the divine presence as well as of our fidelity to God.