THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT - B

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT – YEAR B
(Ex 20:1-17; 1Cor 1:22-25; John 2:13-25)

Theme: We are the living temple of God in the world

Reflection:

Lenten movement:
From the Law of the Old Testament to the Spirit of the New Testament

- We are in the third Sunday of Lent and our Lenten journey continues. Each Sunday we are nourished by the scriptures for our further movement. Today the church reminds us to become the holy and living temple of God. We are called to replace the temples and churches built with stones. We have to replace them by making ourselves the dwelling places of God. Our life should become the grace for others just as the temple/church is the place of grace for all. This is the new significance behind all the readings we have heard today. We have to arrive to this point. Thus, we have to make our journey from the ‘law received’ from God to the ‘law lived’ in spirit of God’. That means, we have to move from the mount of Sinai to the temple of the Spirit. This is the Lenten walk we are called to make today. Even the weeks that went before have made us reach here.
- Little retrieval would help us to deepen our reflection: In the first Sunday of the Lent we have mediated that we have to make our Lenten journey from the desert of desperation to the garden of resurrection or hope of eternal life. In the second Sunday of Lent, last Sunday, we have reflection on the theme that we have to make a passage from the Mount Tabor to the Mount Calvary. That is from the mountain of transfiguration to the mountain of glorification participating in the same condition of Jesus. Being transformed into his image and likeness we have arrived to this point of being the dwelling place of the Spirit.
- Every journey has a point of departure and a point of arrival. So also our Lenten journey. We are not stopped with the participation in the passion of Jesus. The reflection of it is only a point of departure. There is certainly the point of arrival, the fruit of participation in the passion of Jesus. It is the participation in the resurrection and glory. Let us take the pain of passion so that we have the gain of glory. Let us take the thorns of sufferings so that we have the flowers of the joy. Let us enter deeper into his death so that we will rise very high with life. This is the content of the journey we are making. Therefore, we should not be discouraged in our travel even if there are hurdles. We have an assurance of the way that is paved by Jesus himself: the way of the cross. The way of the cross may be in the form of accepting and observing the law of the Lord. But it will certainly reach us to the victory over pain and death and makes us ‘rise again’ from our fall. Once we become participants in the life of Jesus we become the indwelling places for the Holy Spirit. In this way we become temples of the Spirit. Cross leads us to the Temple.
- What is the beauty of the temple? What is there in the church? These questions arise as reflect further. The answer is simple. We come to the church every Sunday not because we want to have some relaxation or recreation. We come to the church because of our desire to become ‘renewed in the spirit’ as the children of God. If we do not this destiny of being God’s property we have no meaning of sitting here and whiling away the precious time. We come to the church because we want to receive something from God. We come to the church because we know that God wills to tell us something and to give us something extraordinary.
o This is the beauty of the temple of the Lord: God speaks and God gives:
o God gives his word: he indicates the way; he instructs with the scriptures; he fills us with his ‘life giving word’. Peter would confess in front of Jesus: “Lord, where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).
o God gives his food: he gives his food; he gives body and blood of his Son Jesus as our spiritual nourishment; he feeds us fully with the satisfying pastures; he provides his bread, that is, ‘life-giving bread’: Jesus would acclaim and proclaim: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35) and “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day” (John 6:54-55).
- Once we come to know the temple/church as the place of God’s sharing of love through the word and through the Eucharist, another question arises: what is the purpose of coming to the temple? And what is the fruit of participation in the liturgy of the temple? The answer is again simple: so that we become the real temple of the Lord. Yes, indeed, we make a passage from being ‘the listeners of the word of God’ and from being ‘the recipients of the spiritual food’ to the being ‘the messengers of the word’ and to the being ‘the providers of the spiritual nutriment’. This is the great passage we have to make: from participation to the becoming of the temple; from receiving to the giving; from taking to the offering; thus, in a word, from being in the temple to become the very temple of the Lord. In the temple we are filled to the full with the word and with the spirit. Being the temple we become the word and the spirit. Others around us should acknowledge and receive from us the word and the nutriment of love. They should see the very presence of God in us. They should experience God’s efficacious life and love through us. The significance of becoming the temple is this: we are the carriers of the word and life of God to others. In a way, we become the mirrors of God for others.
o The testimony which I got from one of the confessor is this: he comes every time with the quotation from the scriptures and applies to his life and basing on that he confesses his sins.
o Observing him well for a long time I asked him how and why he does. The answer he gave is very impressing and meaningful. He said: “father, the word of God is like a mirror through which we look into ourselves, especially, what we are and where we are regarding our relationship with God.”
o It is true that even the church proposes the basic scripture readings for the preparation for the confession. It is because of the reason that we have see our life in the light of the words (the commandments too) that God gives us.
o But many of us neglect this aspect of viewing our life and our attitude with the background of the scriptures. When this man has testified through his regular renewal of the soul through the good confession in the light of God’s word, I am really inspired.
o Yes, indeed, God’s word is a mirror. In this we see our image, our status, our whole being of how we look like, not anymore physically, but spiritually. This is the meaning of being the temple also. In the temple, the presence of God, we know ourselves well.
o Becoming the temple means becoming ‘a mirror’ for others. Others have to make use of life as a mirror for their life. We have to be the image of God through which others too become image of God. This is the deeper meaning of becoming the temple of the Lord: not only transmitters of the word and work of the Lord through us but more than that being the mirrors of God’s image.
- The immediate question that arises after knowing the task of becoming the temple of the Lord is: How can we become the temple of the Lord? What are the means that makes us living temple of the Lord? Answer again is simple if only we observe well. It is God’s word and liturgy itself which make us temple of the Lord. Today’s readings elevate us in becoming ourselves “a place of God’s law and love.”

Lenten passage:
From the Law to the Love, from the temple of stone to the temple of the spirit

- The first reading exalts us to be the observers of the law: In fact, God does not give commandments. Our God is not the God who dominates and commands. He is God who wills to be with us. God with us. Since He wishes to be with us and one of us, He only communicates the way how it can be possible to be with him. Event the first verse of today’s firs reading tells us that “God spoke all these words” (Ex 20:1).
o God’s word is for the good life of the believer: God speaks, not orders; God communicates not commands; the law which comes in the form of ‘his words’ is for the well being of us; those who listen to it will have the possibility of ‘remaining with him’. It is only the invitation of God to the people of Israel to observe his words and thus to have life in him. A call to follow his instructions. A call to put into practice the law given. It is for the good of the people only.
o God invites them into the bond of alliance with him: the ten pronouncements that God made, the Decalogue as we understand it from the teaching of the Church, are the part of alliance God makes with his people; therefore, the Decalogue contains the double relationship: the vertical which is between God and man (the first three commandments) and the horizontal which is between man and man (the rest of the seven commandments). This shows that the vertical relationship between God and man is complete if the horizontal relationship between man and man is missing.
o God invites them to the bond of love: love between Himself and man; and between man and man. In other words, God finds himself present in the man who is relation to other beings with the communion of love. His bond of love is perfect only with the triangular relationship: God – Man – world (other human beings and also the cosmos). This is the fullness of love. In this way, the Decalogue has also the aspect of love.
o The church has already found this aspect of love in the Ten Commandments. It is for this reason that she has compressed all the Ten into Two Commandments of Love: Love of God and Love of Neighbor.
o In this way: law is transformed into love; commandments into the spirit-filled life; this way we become also the mirrors of God’s love and thus we become the very temples of the Lord. No more temples of the stone (the law) but the temples of the spirit (the love).
- Second reading of today reminds us that the Cross of Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1Cor 1:24). In single word we can say that the ‘Cross’ becomes the ‘Spirit’. And this wisdom is not beyond the human science and knowledge. Paul speaks of this: “But we proclaim Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (v. 23).
o In the Cross God has manifested his power and his wisdom: His Power of victory over the sin and death and His Wisdom of unconditional love poured out for the salvation of humanity. Paul speaks to the Corinthians who are the mixture of both ‘Hebrews’ and ‘Gentiles/Greeks’. The community of Corinth is mixture of sings and sciences.
o On the one hand, Hebrews always demanded a sign for the proving the validity for the cross; on the other hand, Greeks who are always go with the reason and science have questioned the authenticity of the cross. In this context, Paul exhorts to the Christians who are in the middle of this confusion and refusal of truth of the cross that for those who believe the cross is no more a scandal but ‘mysterious wisdom of God manifested in the human conditions.’
o He announces that in the centre of Christian message there is God who, in the scandalous manner for the human understanding, wants to be near to man event to the moment of lowliness and death on the cross as a slave. This love of God who makes himself man for being with man and for man is so incomprehensive that it is considered to be ‘untrue’ and ‘unacceptable’ because God cannot become anything according to the sciences.
o It is only the faith that makes us digest the value of the Cross and that makes us live with the same sacrificing figure of Jesus that we will also become ‘the dwelling’ for the Spirit of God. As it was possible for God to become man, so also it will be possible for man to become the temple of God by surrendering to the pain and glory of the cross.
- In the Gospel passage we have an account of the cleansing of the temple by Jesus. It is a passage that we have heard many a time. We have number of elements to understand this deeply. The main aspect is that this passage is connected to the ‘rising of the temple of his body’: resurrection from the damage of death. Thus cleansing the temple materially leads us to understand purifying the life spiritually.
o Cleansing of the temple: Is Jesus has gone out of mind? Ask some people the same question. Marketing at the temple surroundings is not a matter of scandal of the time. It was in the temple of Jerusalem which is known for the only temple of God to which people flock for feast from the long distances. For these people who come from faraway places it is customary that they get their offering articles there in the temple itself which will make their journey easy. It is for this purpose that there are people who sell goats, rams and doves and who also change the money. It was just necessary for that time. It is no strange case. Even Jesus knows it. But why did he send them away?
o It is because of just one reason: market is replacing the temple. People who come to have an adoration of God are stopped there outside immersed in the shopping. The importance is not given to the feast of the Lord but the business and making money. This marketing is blocking the way to reach the Lord. The authorities of the temple and the money changers and sellers have misdirected the people into the business purpose than ‘giving due importance’ to the feast and the celebration of the glory of the Lord. Market was important and necessary but it should be only at the service of the people who come to adore God. But the situation was different. Market had become more popular and often frequented place than the temple of the Lord.
o Market has overtaken the temple and sacrifice has overtaken the zeal for God: This attitude from the authorities who has made the temple for the marketing and making money has made Jesus furious. For this reason, Jesus has whipped them out throwing down the tables of the money changers. He wanted to elevate again the value and significance of the temple of the Lord.
o Jesus, with these gestures, proclaims that God cannot be present in the material temple but in the temple where there is adoration in “spirit and in truth”. The word of God goes this way: “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24).
- Jesus asks us to move from the peripheral observation of the law to the true worship of God in Spirit. This is what we are called to be today. To be the bearers of the Spirit of God: the temple of God.

Lenten call and task:
Our mind is a market - purify and make it a temple of the Lord

- Preoccupied mind is a market place: very often in the life we make our mind a market place. We have lots of preoccupations in the mind. Our mind is completely diverted from being fixed to one thing. Even in the church we feel and do the same. We come here to be with Jesus and to participate in his life through the liturgy of the word and sacrament. We come here and sit. But often and immediately our mind will be somewhere else. It goes its way. It moves around. Many thoughts, which may be important for our daily living, take control of us. We lose the concentration. We are present physically but we are very distant in mind and in heart. Like in the market place we have the play of mind. We turn as it directs us. This is the reason why we hear the word but we do not understand it. This is the reason why we participate in the Eucharist but we do not experience its effect.
- Market is necessary but the church is more valuable: it is human to be always filled with preoccupations. It is normal that we are not that easily avoid the situations. But once we are willing to experience God in spirit and in truth we can make anything possible. It is the zeal for the presence of the Lord. One thing that we need to have is the zeal for the Lord. This zeal and want will make us present ourselves to the Lord. We can control our mind and offer it to know and to love God only if we give priority to the temple of the Lord. We have to make a balance between the need of the market and zeal for the temple. The prior is necessary for our ordinary life. The latter is a must for our extraordinary life.
- Christian Life is an ordinary life with extraordinary way: Christian way is not normal one as the world measures. The way is extraordinary. We are in the world but not to be sticking to the world. We are living our daily life but not to be in the usual way. For example: All move to fall in the pit of attraction of the various marketing goods and pleasure; but our attitude towards the same is quite different; we have to move to use them in a different way; we use them as the stepping stones for the higher purpose of reaching the Lord; we do not allow them to take control of us; we do not become a pry to them; instead, we are ready for both, either to have them or to reject them if unnecessary; Jesus, our Master, has one this: he lived a usual life of the society but in the unusual way; this unusual way is ‘giving priority’ to the will of His Father and this is what made him say: “My food is to do the will of God”: He neither said that food is not necessary nor did he say that it is only thing in life. When two things are in the fight he mixed them; when there is a question of food and the will of God, instead of seeing them as opposite poles, he combined them into one thing in the extraordinary way: food is necessary but my food is not ordinary material food, instead, it is the same will of God. This is the way we too are called to form our mind and our attitude towards both the temple and the market. We need market but our market should be the same temple of the Lord; we called this way to live an ordinary life with an extraordinary Christian way. We put away the preoccupations which block our access to God. We have to keep aside and throw down all the things that disturb and hinder the way to the Lord. We clean our minds and fill it with the zeal for the Lord. We have to purify our hearts and make them the temple of the Lord.
- Preparing our body and soul as the temple of the Lord: temple is the place of prayer and the place of interaction with the Lord and with one another. We have to be that place where we give possibility to all for the experience of love of God and love of neighbor. We are the mediators between these vertical and horizontal dimensions of love. In a word, we are the place of love – or – indwelling of the Spirit. Let us keep in mind the effect and fruit of Jesus’ Cross which made us “the temples of the Spirit” and let us make our spiritual journey, thus, from the mountain of Sinai to the temple of the Spirit, from the law to the love, and from the confusion of the market to the participation in the mystery of passion of Jesus. Thus, both our Lenten call and task is: to prepare ourselves to be “the living temple of God in the world.”