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SCRIPTURE REFLECTION

John 2:13-22 - Jesus drives the money-changers from the temple.

Gospel Reflection

A theme that runs throughout the gospel of John is that Jesus seeks to break down the institutions of the Jewish Temple and the gospel writer presents Jesus as the fulfilment and replacement of the Temple. This theology actually harkens back to an earlier Jewish tradition, evident in the scriptures of the Old Testament, where the community itself is described as a ‘holy building’ or ‘temple’. 

This image may have arisen from the fact that for so long the Israelites had no ‘home’ and they believed that God travelled with them wherever they went. Furthermore, once they did construct a Temple in Jerusalem in the 10th Century BCE, it was destroyed at the time the Jews were taken into exile in Babylon (587 BCE) and rebuilt later in the 6th Century BCE. So, for many years, the Jewish people were familiar with the idea that the travelling community itself constituted the ‘holy place’ where God was present.

They had to think about a different way in which God was present in their midst. In the gospel of John, Jesus is presented as the one who fulfils and replaces the Temple tradition.

 Today’s gospel, featuring Jesus ‘cleansing’ the Temple and making reference to the sanctuary being destroyed and raised up again in three days, is a crucial element of the gospel writer’s development of this theme.

Gospel Focus – The Temple

Jesus’ attack on the misuse of the Temple is often interpreted as an attack on the entire Temple system that operated at his time. The Temple was the centre of Jewish faith and there was an entire hierarchy and politicised structure that surrounded and supported the Temple. This elite Temple class effectively ruled the manner in which people could pray and offer sacrifice. It is this distancing of everyday people from the opportunity to worship that Jesus was seeking to ‘cleanse’ from the Temple. The gospel makes clear that people do not need this structure to enter into a prayerful relationship with God.

By Greg Sunter 

Edited by Jonathan Rooney