If you follow the newfangled lectionary, you'll have heard St. John's account of Christ driving the money changers and associated cattle out of the Temple. Picture the scene.
There's the forecourt of the Temple turned into a cattle market, replete with FX grifters exchanging secular currency for Temple coin, and making a nice profit to boot. Why? Because the Jews had to buy animals to sacrifice and the Temple didn't accept secular money. Enter Christ.
Zeal for his Father's house consumed him as he drove the beasts out with a whip, overturning the cattle market casino which had turned the Temple, the holiest place on earth, the focus of atonement as it then was, into a "den of thieves."
The Temple was defiled and Christ couldn't stand for it, hungering and thirsting for righteousness he drove it out, and the message, on the face of it, is clear. No corruption, grift, skulduggery and malfeasance in the Holy Church of God. But there's more.
Sensing something deeper, bystanders ask for a sign, they want to know what our Lord's actions signify, and he tells them, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." Of course they're confused, but we're not.
Jesus' cleansing of the Temple is a prophetic act which points to his death and resurrection, to his atoning sacrifice and its attendant victory. He will be the new Temple and its Sacrifice, as one. So Christ drives the animals and the moneylenders out of the Temple. Their time is done.
We're the beneficiaries of this, the blood of the Paschal Lamb is on the lintel of our souls, such that the Angel of Death passes over us. As living stones in the spiritual temple of Christ's Body, the Church, his sacrifice is operative within us, which brings us back to the wicked money changers.
For sure, the Church writ large must cleanse herself of corruption, but what about us, as persons, the Church writ small? Surely the same applies. We're Temples of the Spirit, says the Apostle, and so we are. Message to market?
Repent. Drive those knavish thieves, the world, the flesh and the Devil out of the temple of our souls so that we, clean, may find union with the Cross and the life which flows from it. Therein lies sanctification and beatitude, and herein endeth the Lesson.
Your Old Friend,
LSP
14 comments:
Righteous anger. Amen.
Beautiful sermon, Parson.
Thank you.
Repent. Drive those knavish thieves, the world, the flesh and the Devil out of the temple of our souls
Need to work on that.
That wasn't very nice. Jesus wasn't nice at all. Don't you be nice, either, Good Christian.
What would Jesus do? Assault is an option.
We could certainly use some whipping in the Church today. Here in NYC all the previous cardinal's hats are hanging from the ceiling of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The joke is when a cardinal is released from purgatory his hat falls to the floor.
No hat has ever fallen to the floor.
Beautitude - word of the day.
It took me a long time to understand he was foreshadowing his death at the temple...
Juliette, I have to agree. Then there's Meghan "Markle." What a climbing, overpromoted, 2-bit, d list grifter.
Sometimes it's in order, Camper.
Thank you, drjim. I appreciate that.
Right with you, WSF.
Ominous, Christ most certainly wasn't a Hallmark card.
No that, Infidel, is interesting. The London equivalent, of course, is Westminster Cathedral, and right there in the crypt are the hanging hats. None of them have fallen, though I'd like to think Basil Hume's has by now.
I sure liked him. What a Benedictine gentleman and, I'd say, someone who should have been Cantaur. Too bad we're in such an imperfect world.
Same here, NFO. I always thought it was a simple story of NO CORRUPTION! Well, it's that plus...
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