Readings:
• Ez 47:1-2, 8-9, 12
• Ps 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9
• 1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17
• Jn 2:13-22
Some thousand years before the time of Christ the great Temple of Solomon was built. Previously, the tribes of Israel had worshipped God in sanctuaries housing the ark of the covenant. King David had desired to build a permanent house of God for the ark. But that work was accomplished by his son, Solomon, equally famous for his wisdom—and his eventual corruption due to the pursuit of power and wealth.
In the Old Testament, the temple is often referred to as “the house of the Lord”. It is sometimes called “Zion,” as in today’s Psalm (Ps. 46), a term that also referred to the city of Jerusalem, which in turn represented the people of God. The temple was a barometer of sorts for the health of the covenantal relationship between God and the people. Many of the prophets warned that a failure to uphold the Law and live the covenant would result in the destruction of the temple.
The prophet Jeremiah, for example, warned that having the temple couldn’t protect the people from the consequences of their sins: “Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD’.” (Jer. 7).
In 587 B.C., the temple was finally destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, marking the start of The Exile. During that time, in the 25th year of exile, the prophet Ezekiel had a vision of a new temple (Ezek. 40-48). The description of the temple, part of it heard in today’s first reading, hearkened back in various ways to the first chapters of Genesis (cf., Gen. 2:10-14), including references to pure water, creatures in abundance, and unfading trees producing continuous fresh fruit. This heavenly temple, it was commonly believed, would descend from heaven and God would then dwell in the midst of mankind.
Following the exile, the temple was rebuilt, then damaged, and rebuilt again. Finally, not long before the birth of Christ, Herod built an expansive, glorious temple. It was there that Jesus was presented by Mary and Joseph and blessed by Simeon (Lk 2:22-35) and where he, as a youth, spent time talking to the teachers of the Law (Lk 2:43-50). It was also the setting for the scene described in today’s Gospel—the cleansing of the temple and Jesus’ shocking prophecy: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
Was Jesus, in cleansing the temple, attacking the temple itself? No. And did Jesus, in making his remark, say he would destroy the temple? No. But, paradoxically, the love of the Son for his Father and his Father’s house did point toward the demise of the temple. “This is a prophecy of the Cross,” wrote Joseph Ratzinger in The Spirit of the Liturgy, “he shows that the destruction of his earthly body will be at the same time the end of the Temple.”
Why? Because a new and everlasting Temple was established by the death and Resurrection of the Son of God. “With his Resurrection the new Temple will begin: the living body of Jesus Christ, which will now stand in the sight of God and be the place of all worship. Into this body he incorporates men.”
The new Temple of God did, in fact, come down from heaven. It dwelt among man (Jn. 1:14). “It” is a man: “Christ is the true temple of God, ‘the place where his glory dwells’; by the grace of God, Christians also become temples of the Holy Spirit, living stones out of which the Church is built” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1197). Through baptism we become joined to the one Body of Christ, and that Body, the Church, is the “one temple of the Holy Spirit” (CCC, 776).
“Come! behold the deeds of the LORD,” wrote the Psalmist, “the astounding things he has wrought on earth.” Indeed, behold Jesus the Christ, the true and astounding temple of God, and worship him in spirit and in truth.”
(This “Opening the World” column originally appeared in the November 9, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)
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And, since Christ IS the Temple, if our moral thinking were less subject to our spatial imaginations, we would see better the mysterious irony that when Jesus was lost for three days He would be found “in” the Temple. The Temple was more IN Him all along.
In the doxology of the Mass and prior to receiving the consecrated Host, we hear: “Through Him, with Him, and IN Him….” We become temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19). This from St. Gregory of Nyssa: “The man who cleanses his heart of every created thing and every evil desire will see the image of the divine nature in the beauty of his own soul.”
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” Jn.4:23-24
Although, “Thus says the LORD: The heavens are my throne, the earth, my footstool. What house can you build for me? Where is the place of my rest? My hand made all these things when all of them came to be. This is the one whom I approve: the afflicted one, crushed in spirit, who trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66 USCCB).
Christ is the everlasting temple as said. Nonetheless, the Apostle adds 1 Cor 6 We are temples of the Holy Spirit. God’s admonishment prophesied by Isaiah alludes to the humble and afflicted as the place where he desires to reside. Christ, who reveals God the Father in his humanness is also God the Son. As the eternal residence of God the Father the Son desires similar residence within us through the Holy Spirit. A form of trinitarian unity reflected in our likeness to the Son.
“I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” Rev. 21.22
During the time of Christ, the Sadducees — the descendants of Aaron — controlled the temple cult. They were worldly, wealthy, and political, and did not acknowledge the teachings of the prophets — the descendants of Moses — nor did they believe in the Resurrection of the dead. They only recognized the Torah (the Pentateuch) as being valid. Thus, Jesus of Nazareth naturally opposed their cult.