One foggy, stormy night at sea, a ship’s captain caught sight of
what looked like the lights of another ship heading straight toward him. He
ordered his signalman to relay a message to the oncoming ship: "Change
your course twenty degrees to the south."
Immediately came the reply, "Change your course twenty
degrees to the north." The lights were getting closer, so the
captain responded firmly, "I’m a captain. Change your course south."
But the reply was equally firm, "I’m only a seaman but you
must change your course north." Outraged at such insolence as the lights
loomed nearer and nearer, the captain fired back the message, "You idiot!
I’m giving you one last chance to change your course south. I’m on a
battleship!"
To which he received the cool reply, "I’m giving you one last
chance to change your course north. I’m in a lighthouse."
Jesus
clears the money changers put of the Temple and the Jews ask him: What sign
can you show us to justify what you have done? What they are really asking,
of course, is: by what authority did you do this? And this is a very
appropriate question.
The
priests have authority in the temple but to go back to that story: they are the
battleship, but Jesus is the lighthouse.
The
Synoptic Gospels—that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke—have Jesus cleansing the
temple at the end of his public ministry and as an immediate prelude to his
passion and death. But here in the Gospel of John we have this scene at the
launch of Jesus’ public ministry.
This is
important. In the Synoptics the incident is used by the priests and scribes as
just one more reason to do away with Jesus.
But in
John it is taken to much deeper levels. For example in driving the cattle and
sheep out of the temple—not mentioned in the Synoptics—we are led to ask
whether Jesus was objecting to their presence in the temple precincts which
surely was an abuse by the priests at that time or if he was objecting to the
whole notion of animal sacrifice.
We are
led to the latter of these explanations, especially in view of the fact that
Jesus himself was to be offered as a sacrifice for the expiation of the sins of
the whole of humanity.
In John
we have the interplay between the priests and Jesus, which again is not in the
Synoptic Gospels, about destroying the temple and in three days raising it up.
Jesus, as we are told was referring to himself.
We
mustn’t forget that the destruction of the temple took place in 70 AD and was
fresh in the minds of the Christians communities to whom this Gospel was
addressed. The temple we are told in the text took forty-six years to construct
and yet it was to last a remarkably short time. Its destruction by the Romans
was so complete that we don’t actually know much about it.
Or we
didn’t until this chap in Essex began to build a model of it—there was a long
and fascinating article about him in the papers last week. Apparently the
scholars have studied the temple from all sorts of angles; as historians, as
liturgists, as theologians, as anthropologists, but never from the construction
point of view. It became an obsession with him to make a model of the temple
and it has taken him years already; three years alone for the basic research.
But now he knows more about the temple than anyone living and scholars are now
coming from all over the world to learn from him.
Anyway I
suppose that we are led to conclude that the whole passage is about Jesus
himself. This is often the case with John; we are led from what Jesus did to
what it tells us about him.
It is a
case of not so much that he was angry with the traders and so wanted to cleanse
the temple, but that it was now time for the whole notion of the temple to be
swept away. That he was to be the temple. He was to be the victim and the
sacrifice. That his followers were to live a new life—through him, with him and
in him.
The
community is to be centred on Jesus. The Church is to be no more a mere
building but a community of believers. The privileged meeting place between God
and his people is no longer to be the temple but the person of Jesus himself.
He is the temple.
This
doesn’t, of course, mean that we do away with all Church buildings, far from
it. We continue to need them but the important thing is that they don’t become
ends in themselves but rather places where we encounter Jesus. And we do this
first and foremost in the Eucharist. The altar is the principal focus; the
lectern for the proclamation of the Word has due prominence; the tabernacle for
the reservation of the Eucharist is in a place of honour.
The
Church is sanctified by the prayers of the believers. It is a place set apart
for worship and devotion. And it deserves special respect. But this is not the
temple of old where thousands of animals were sacrificed to placate a jealous
God. This is a privileged place of encounter between the living and loving God
and his holy people.
But the
temple is also within us. Our hearts are also a temple, our very personal
privileged meeting place with God. And it is our hearts that need periodic
cleansing of all that distracts us from Jesus.
And
that’s what Lent is about—clearing away the dross, driving out the material
attractions, making room for Jesus. Our hearts need to become a tabernacle in
which we reserve the living Lord.