Sunday, March 23, 2003
3^rd Sunday of Lent

1^st Reading: Ex 20:1-17 (or 1-3, 7-8, 12-17)

God spoke all these words. He said, “I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Do not have other gods before me.

Do not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God; for the sin of the fathers, when they rebel against me, I punish the sons, the grandsons and the great-grandsons; but I show steadfast love until the thousandth generation for those who love me and keep my commandments.

Do not take the name of Yahweh your God in vain for Yahweh will not leave unpunished anyone who takes his name in vain.

Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you will labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath for Yahweh your God. Do not work that day, neither you, nor your son, nor your daughter nor your servants, men or women, nor your animals, nor the stranger who is staying with you. For in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day he rested; that is why Yahweh 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 that Yahweh has given you.

Do not kill.

Do not commit adultery.

Do not steal.

Do not give false witness against your neighbor.

Do not covet your neighbor’s house. Do not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his servant, man or woman, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is his.”

2^nd Reading: 1 Cor 1:22-25

The Jews ask for miracles and the Greeks for a higher knowledge, while we proclaim a crucified Messiah. For the Jews, what a great scandal! And for the Greeks, what nonsense! But he is Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God for those called by God among both Jews and Greeks.

In reality, the “foolishness” of God is wiser than humans, and the “weakness” of God is stronger than humans.

Gospel: Jn 2:13-25

As the Passover of the Jews was at hand, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple court he found merchants selling oxen, sheep and doves, and money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the Temple court, together with the oxen and sheep. He knocked over the tables of the money-changers, scattering the coins, and ordered the people selling doves, “Take all this away and stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”

His disciples recalled the words of Scripture: Zeal for your House devours me as a fire.

The Jews then questioned Jesus, “Where are the miraculous signs which give you the right to do this?” And Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then replied, “The building of this temple has already taken forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?”

Actually, Jesus was referring to the temple of his body. Only when he had risen from the dead did his disciples remember these words; then they believed both the Scripture and the words Jesus had spoken.

Jesus stayed in Jerusalem during the Passover Festival and many believed in his Name when they saw the miraculous signs he performed. But Jesus did not trust himself to them, because he knew all of them. He had no need of evidence about anyone for he himself knew what there was in each one.

Commentary

Jesus cleanses the temple, driving away the money changers and those who sold sheep, doves, and oxen. This would incur the ire not only of the chief priests, the scribes, and Pharisees, but many of the ordinary people as well. What Jesus did was a dramatic gesture meant to make a point. His zeal for the physical temple built by human hands was intended to point to a deeper and more interior kind of temple, the temple of his body. They who had been blind to his words and deeds from the very beginning would now not be able to see. Just as clarity of understanding happens gradually, so too does blindness occur in stages. The scribes, Pharisees, and leaders of the Jews had from the very beginning sought to block from their sight, the goodness of Jesus’ message. And so now that that message is fast approaching its completion, they find themselves blinded all the more.

Read also: Gospel Reflections by Fr. Gerry Pierse, C.Ss.R. • Biblical Commentaries from Diario Biblico

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