Third Sunday of Lent, Cycle B March 4, 2018

FIRST READING
Exodus 20:1-17 (or shorter form, Exodus 20:1-3,7-8,12-17)
Moses is given the Ten Commandments.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM
Psalm 19:8,9,10,11
A prayer of praise to God who gives us his commandments
SECOND READING
1 Corinthians 1:22-25
Paul preaches Christ crucified to the Corinthians.

GOSPEL READING
Jesus drives out the moneychangers from the Temple and says that he will
destroy the temple and raise it up again.


GOSPEL JN 2:13-25

Since the Passover of the Jews was near,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
"Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father's house a marketplace."
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.
At this the Jews answered and said to him,
"What sign can you show us for doing this?"
Jesus answered and said to them,
"Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."
The Jews said,
"This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and you will raise it up in three days?"
But he was speaking about the temple of his body.
Therefore, when he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this,
and they came to believe the Scripture
and the word Jesus had spoken.

While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover,
many began to believe in his name
when they saw the signs he was doing.
But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all,
and did not need anyone to testify about human nature.
He himself understood it well.

Background on the Gospel Reading

In today's Gospel we read about how Jesus overturned the tables of the
merchants and the moneychangers in the Temple at Jerusalem. In order to
understand the relevance of Jesus' action, we must learn more about the
activities that were going on in the temple area. Worship at the Temple
in Jerusalem included animal sacrifice, and merchants sold animals to
worshipers. Moneychangers exchanged Roman coins, which bore the image of
the Roman emperor, for the temple coins that were needed to pay the
temple tax.

Jesus' action at the Temple in Jerusalem is recorded in all four Gospels
and is often understood to be among the events that led to Jesus' arrest
and Crucifixion. The Gospel of John, however, places this event much
earlier in Jesus' public ministry than do the Synoptic Gospels. In
John's Gospel this event occurs at the very beginning of Jesus'
ministry, after his first miracle at the wedding feast at Cana.

We must read the Gospel of John carefully, especially in its
presentation of Jesus' relationship to Judaism. The Gospel of John tends
to reflect greater tension and animosity between Jesus and the Jewish
authorities than the Synoptic Gospels. The Gospel of John was the last
of the four Gospels to be written, and its narrative reflects the
growing divide between the Jewish community and the early Christian
community. Thus, greater emphasis on the distinction between
Christianity and Judaism is found in John's Gospel.

Reflecting upon the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem (A.D. 70),
John recalls Jesus' cleansing of the Temple and uses that story to
interpret this later event. John explains to his audience, an early
Christian community, that temple worship would no longer be necessary
because it was surpassed in the passion, death, and Resurrection of
Jesus. With greater frequency than the other Evangelists, John
intersperses post-Resurrection reflections of this Christian community
in his narrative.

After clearing the Temple of the merchants and the moneychangers, John's
Gospel tells us that the people asked for a sign of Jesus' authority to
do such an audacious act. In response, Jesus predicted his death and
Resurrection. Throughout John's Gospel, the language of signs is
distinctive. Jesus' miracles are called signs, and the people look to
these signs for proof of his authority. Here we learn that the sign par
excellence will be Jesus' passion, death, and Resurrection.

During Lent we reflect upon the meaning of this sign for us and for our
world. We might take this opportunity to consider the quality of our
prayer and worship. In our prayers we seek to deepen our relationship
with the person of Christ. In our worship with the community, we gather
to experience anew the passion, death, and Resurrection of Jesus and its
significance in our lives. Christ promises to be present with us when we
gather for prayer.

Family Connection

Today's Gospel invites us to reflect upon our worship of God. For Jesus
and his Jewish contemporaries, the Temple was an important, holy place
where they gathered to worship God. The Christian understanding of
worship was transformed in light of Jesus' Resurrection. In the
Christian understanding, God is worshiped in a person, the person of
Jesus Christ. As we read in today's Gospel, Jesus is himself the Temple
that will be destroyed, but in three days God will raise him up again.

As you gather as a family, talk about places and times when you have
experienced God's presence. After his Resurrection, Jesus' disciples
understood that Jesus was present with them as they gathered to pray and
especially when they gathered to share a meal. Read together today's
Gospel, John 2:13-25. Jesus teaches us in today's Gospel that he is
God's presence with us. Thank God for Jesus' presence with us,
especially in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Pray together the Lord's
Prayer.


Sources: Loyola Press; Sunday Readings