Reading for March 11

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.

John 2: 13-25

School of Hieronymous Bosch

So why does Jesus come after the moneychangers? There is surely no great evil here. Just some small businessmen trying to make a living. And their trade was not, on the face of it, disrespectful to the temple. It involved meeting the requirements of Jewish law. They were selling animals to sacrifice, and exchanging Roman coins, which had the emperor's face on them, for Jewish shekels, which did not, so that one's offering did not offend the ban on graven images. What's wrong with that? After all, Jesus doesn't lose his temper in this way towards tax collectors, publicans, prostitutes, or Roman centurions.

Durer

I think the point is symbolic. It is not that these people were doing something wrong, and it is not that Jesus was really angry. He was proclaiming the new covenant.

He overturned the tables of the moneychangers, because the prohibition against graven images was now no longer in effect. The problem had been the impossibility of portraying God, who is pure spirit, as a creature. Yet now he himself, after all, was God, and at the same time man. We could now therefore legitimately portray God with a human face. The moneychangers were no longer needed. Worshippers had, at the same time, been released by God from this burden.

Giotto.

In the same way, he dispersed the sellers of doves, oxen, and sheep, and their animals, because the days of blood sacrifice had now ended. Now, he himself would be the sacrifice, as he is daily in the Mass; releasing both animals and humans from this bondage.

Rembrandt.

And what is this about speaking of the Temple as his body? Again, this is the New Covenant. Before, the temple was the one place where the divine and human worlds met, making it the only proper place for true worship and sacrifice. Now, however, the divine and human met instead, and more completely, in him. He had become what the temple was previously. And the tearing down and then in three days raising up this new temple of his body was the foundation of the New Covenant.