When it started, all was fresh and new. An unnamed but mighty God freed a motley crew of slaves and offered them a new way of life in a new land. Most importantly, he offered them a privileged and exclusive relationship with Himself.

In the ancient world, most nations worshipped their own god and believed themselves to have a special claim on his favor. The Greeks had Zeus and the Canaanites, Ba’al, for instance. But this was different. This mysterious God called himself "I AM who I AM" and apparently tolerated no rivals. He had beaten the Egyptian gods on their own turf and appeared ready to take his new people into Ba’al’s territory. None of the other gods required any special behavior, just sacrificial worship. This new one required fidelity to a code of conduct that reached into every department of life, not just the religious. No area was off limits to the claims of this God – economics, family life, even sexuality. If Israel wanted this special relationship, they had to accept the stamp of his ownership on every aspect of their existence. That was the real meaning of the ten commandments, this Sunday’s first reading.

But what began with heartfelt zeal ultimately became ritual routine. The code of the covenant had called for animal sacrifices and a special place to carry them out. The devotion of David desired a fitting place for God’s house. The resourcefulness of his shrewd son Solomon made the dream a reality. After the Babylonians destroyed it, it was rebuilt in tears, a shadow of its former self. Then a powerful king came along who saw an opportunity to make the temple once again the pride of God’s people. He rebuilt it in even greater glory. But it was more a monument to himself than to God. After all, he cared little for God, and was not even himself a full-blooded Jew. He was rather a cold-blooded murderer whose name will forever live in infamy–Herod the Great.

How about the religious leaders of Herod’s day? Religion had become for them a business. Animals were needed for sacrifice, so they were sold in the temple precincts. Hebrew shekels were needed for the payment of the temple tax, so moneychangers were conveniently available so people could exchange their Roman money for the appropriate Jewish coinage.

The prophet Malachi (3:1-5) had predicted that the Lord would suddenly come to his temple to deal with such things. And Zechariah (14:21) had foretold that on the day of the Lord, there would no longer be any merchant in the temple precincts.

So when Jesus overturned the moneychangers’s tables, he was fulfilling Scripture and making clear that the messianic time of fulfilment was at hand. No more business as usual. No more ho-hum approach to religion. It was now time for living faith, not just religious belief. Zeal for God’s house consumed him, and he had come to light the fire of zeal in us as well.

Lent provides for us an opportunity for a gut-check Has our religion become cold routine, a mere collection of intellectual convictions and external rituals as with the scribes and Pharisees? Is our piety more a monument to ourselves than to God as in the case of Herod? Is Christ crucified for us the power and the wisdom of God, or just a plaster figure hanging on the wall?

The story of Jesus and the moneychangers comes at the beginning of the Gospel of John. From the very outset of his public ministry, Jesus predicted his death and resurrection to his uncomprehending audience. It would be his self-sacrifice that would ultimately lead to a new beginning. And to prepare for that event, he cleaned house.

As we prepare for the celebration of the mystery of redemption, it is time for us too to clean house and to honor his self-sacrifice with authentic sacrifices of our own.

Jesus "made a [kind of] whip of cords and drove sheep and oxen alike out of the temple area." —John 2:15


By cleansing the temple, Jesus may have proclaimed that the animal sacrifices of the old law were no longer necessary. This would be a shocking revelation, because animal sacrifice was called for in Leviticus and was the heart of Jewish worship. When He cleansed the temple, Jesus may have been saying He was above the Scriptures, tradition, and the Temple. He may have been saying that He was God.

The obvious response to Jesus' seemingly blasphemous action was to either stone Him or ask for a sign showing His authority to do such a thing, which would show that He was God. Jesus gave such a sign, declaring that the Temple of His body would be destroyed and then raised up on the third day (Jn 2:19).

When Jesus' body was destroyed on Calvary, He made the once-and-for-all perfect sacrifice that atoned for all sin and made animal sacrifice obsolete (Heb 10:14, 18). When Jesus rose from the dead, He showed He was God, for only God has power over death (see Jn 5:21). Only God has the power to go beyond His revelation in Leviticus and His divinely revealed tradition.

When Jesus cleansed the Temple, He was not destroying property but prefiguring the obsolescence of animal sacrifice — the heart of Jewish worship. Only God could do that. Therefore, Jesus would have to be crucified as a blasphemer unless He actually was God. If He was God, and was still crucified, then He would have to rise from the dead. Jesus rose. He is God. Amen!

Prayer: Father, may my obedience to Jesus be so radical as to be understandable to others only if they believe Jesus is God.
Promise: "God's folly is wiser than men." —1 Cor 1:25
Praise: Praise Jesus, Whose love knows no bounds! Alleluia!

EXPLANATION: In a few sentences St. Paul gives us the basic reasons which motivated opposition to the gospel message on the part of Jews and Gentiles. The Jews who did not accept Christ as their promised Messiah, refused because he did not fit the pre-conceived ideas they had formed of the Messiah. The Messiah they were looking for was to be a political leader, a national liberator who would not only rid Palestine of the hated Romans but set it over all the pagan nations. God, they thought, would help him to do this, by giving him the power to work some spectacular miracles or signs (see Mt. 12: 38; 16:4; Jn. 4: 48; 6-30). The Greeks or Gentiles on the other hand looked to philosophy or human "wisdom" for the solution of man's problems. Christianity had no such earthly wisdom and so the intelligentsia among the Greeks had no time for the gospel of Christ.

preach...crucified: Crucifixion was the death given to a public criminal. That the one who posed as their Messiah should allow himself to suffer defeat in such a shameful manner was something revolting and abhorrent to their ideas. In fact it amounted to evident proof Christ was not the promised Messiah but a fraudulent usurper of the title.
folly...Gentiles: The intellectual Greeks could see nothing but folly in a man dying for his friends. There was no future life. What then was Christ gaining for others? Why shorten the too brief life which could be his?
to those...called: Those Jews and Gentiles who have heard the gospel of Christ and answered its call. For these, Christ the God-man, who died so that they might live, proves the power and the wisdom of God. The incarnation, death and resurrection of Christ were the greatest of "signs" which only the infinite power and love of God could work. These acts of God's love for us give the one and only satisfying explanation of man's life on this earth––-a philosophy, a wisdom that the Greeks could not comprehend, much less discover for themselves.
foolishness of God: What to mere men looks like foolishness (the Son of God suffering for men, for instance) is instead an act of the divine wisdom.
weakness of God: The enemies of Christ thought they had won when Christ was crucified, but his resurrection showed the power of God over death, and over all enemies. In what looked to men like weakness, the strength of God was shown forth.

APPLICATION: These few lines from St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians should make us stop and think how fortunate and blessed we are to have the gift of the true faith. We know that Christ was and is for us the power and the wisdom of God. Through that power and wisdom God proved his infinite love for us. In creation he made man the masterpiece of his work and the master of all other created things on earth. He gave us the gifts of intellect and will by means of which we can see the good and the beautiful and come to love both. This in itself was a marvelous privilege but the fact that we are finite, that our span of life on earth may be all too short could spoil and mar our enjoyment of the good and the beautiful and render earthly sufferings almost unbearable. Man might well envy the beasts which have no knowledge of the good and the beautiful, and no remembrance of happy days gone by nor any desire for future happiness––-if he had all these and saw no fulfillment for them. But the wisdom of God was at work when creating us. He planned to raise us above merely human status so that we could have our natural desire for everlasting enjoyment of the good and beautiful fulfilled. This he did through Christ––-his divine Son who "was made man." By joining our human nature to his divine nature he made us his brothers and heirs to the eternal life.

We must still die, as Christ himself died in his humanity, but like him, we shall be raised from the dead to begin our new eternal life in the presence of the Good and the Beautiful––-God himself––-who will be the source and cause of happiness to us for all eternity. This is what the power and wisdom of God has arranged for us. This is for us the true philosophy of life. It explains our sufferings as well as our joys; it answers all our hopes and explains our earthly disappointments. The coming of Christ was surely the proof of God's power and wisdom for us and should be so for all men.

Yet, unfortunately, there are millions alive today, who have the same innate desire for lasting happiness and the same dislike for life's trials and disappointments, but have not the light of the Christian faith to answer their basic question " what is it all for? Why am I here? Must all my desires and ambitions and hopes end in the grave?" The answer is there. But they will not heed it. The crucified Christ, whom St. Paul preached in Corinth, is still a stumbling block and a folly to too many, Jews and Gentiles, who will not open their eyes to look beyond earthly interests or who have long since closed their ears to the pleading voice of conscience. They think they are stronger than God and can do without him. They imagine themselves wiser than God, and consider that they do not need any solution to their problem from him. But there is only one real wisdom, there is only one who is powerful. To reject him is to reject hope, and to face a very short but a very bleak future. Far better to be an animal who does not remember yesterday and has no idea of, or thought for, the morrow.

We appreciate then, the gift of the true faith which we have received, and see the folly of those who deliberately reject that gift of God. Let us, however, not forget that God wants all men in heaven, and that a big part of our duty as Christians is to help by every means in our power, to bring our fellowman to a knowledge of their loving Father. The willing apostle will find many ways of spreading the gospel message, but for all of us there is the simple but effective means of good example. The follower of Christ who lives his daily life in a truly Christian manner is a constant reminder to his family and neighbors of the true meaning of life. His example may not be copied immediately but it will eventually have its effect.

Today, let us say two short prayers. First, a prayer of sincere thanks to God for being so good as to give us the gift of the true faith. Second, a prayer of petition, let us ask God to open the eyes and ears of those of our fellowman who have shut them against God and his Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, that they may see; Lord that they may hear!

Do you have a dog? If you, do I’m sure your dog knows the following rules must be obeyed. The refuse-collector is not stealing our belongings. I must not stand straight up when I am lying under the coffee table. My head does not belong in the refrigerator. What do you think of the following rules for eating chocolate? We should eat more fruit; Chocolate-coated raisins, cherries, and orange slices all count as fruit, so eat as many as you want. We are supposed to eat a balanced diet so eating equal amounts of white and dark chocolate is a balanced diet.

The dog learned rules from the family. On the other hand, the rules for chocolate were twisting reason in order to allow one’s desires/feelings to be satisfied. What about our journey through life? How do we know how to live? Do we follow any twisted rules allowing us merely to indulge our desires/feelings? If we grew up on a desert island where the faith had never arrived we would still know some basic rights from wrongs. We call this Natural Law. Natural Law would help us to make decisions about right and wrong, even if we had no faith, e.g. not to take the life of another. Even if we grew up in a desert island where the faith had not arrived, we would have a conscience though not fully developed, and Natural Law would help us make decisions about living.

Read the rest of this homily by clicking on the link above....

How is Jesus challenged (verse 18)? Why? What effect does this response have on them?