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.
“Stop making my father’s house a marketplace”. This line struck me. What also struck me was that this was the only time Jesus lost his temper. He seems to be communicating the clear message that we are not to bring what is Caesar’s to the house of what is God’s. To take that in its broadest sense, we need to leave ego behind when we are entering the realm of the divine. Spirituality cannot be the pursuit of “me”. Therefore it needs to be about “other”, sacrifice and service. It needs to be about appreciation and gratitude rather than self-pity, jealousy and resentment. The other line that struck me is: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
ReplyDeleteJesus is suggesting that the divine is forever. Any destruction is temporary and it resurrects. The ego dies and returns to dust when we die. So the time we put into discovering, appreciating and cultivating that which is divine in us, is time spent on an eternal investment.