Today we switch from Mark's Gospel to that of John, with a description of an incident which occurs in the Jerusalem Temple:

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.

He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. (2:13-25)

The previous scene in John's narrative is the wedding in the Galilean village of Cana, where Jesus provides wine instead of water, and launches his mission. Now Jesus has travelled on pilgrimage up to Jerusalem, and enters the temple, the centre of Jewish worship and national hope. The atmosphere changes from celebration to conflict. It is the time of the Jewish feast of Passover, the first of three which Jesus attends according to this Gospel. The narrative divides naturally into two sections: the situation which Jesus finds in the temple and his reaction to it, and his saying about the temple.

On arriving into the temple precincts, Jesus is confronted with a chaotic scene which resembles a market, with cattle and sheep as well as doves and pigeons. Money changers have set up their stalls as usual, since the temple tax had to be paid in old coinage, given that Roman coinage would defile the temple. Sticks and weapons were forbidden, so Jesus fashions a whip from the rope used for handling the cattle and drives out the merchants and their animals. He knocks over the tables of the money changers, scattering their coins, and orders the pigeon sellers to take their cages away. His words clarify the meaning of his action:

Take all this out of here and stop using my Father's house as a market.

The Greek contrasts the house of my Father with a house of market, an allusion to the promise of Zechariah 14:21 that in the day of Yahweh there would no longer be need of sacrifices, and hence no merchants in the temple. It appears that Jesus considers it an abuse to use the temple, God's dwelling and a place of prayer, as a market, a noisy trading centre. It is significant that he calls my Father the God whom the people of Israel believed to dwell there.

The disciples, whose presence we note for the first time, sense the dangerous consequences of what Jesus has done, and interpret his action by remembering the words of Psalm 69:9, and changing the tense of the verb from past to future: Zeal for your house will consume me. Jesus is committed to God's honour, and this will lead to his undoing. The cross casts its shadow.

The second part of the passage takes the form of a dialogue between Jesus and the religious authorities, the representatives of the old order, usually referred to in this Gospel as the Jews. They are appalled by what he has done and demand a sign of accreditation, a proof that he has the requisite authority for such action. Jesus responds enigmatically:

Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

The statement, whether it is an imperative or a conditional, can be understood in two ways. The Jews take it literally and superficially, presuming that Jesus is referring to the temple of stone and wood recently extended and decorated by Herod, and mockingly throw his words back at him. Clearly they consider his words to be quite absurd. There is no indication of the slightest openness to him. The narrator then indicates the correct meaning of Jesus' words. After his death resulting from his zeal for God, he will be raised up. His risen body will be the new temple. This his disciples will come to understand later.

It is interesting to note that the incident of the temple's cleansing, which in John occurs at the outset of Jesus' ministry, takes place in the other Gospels at the beginning of what we now call Holy Week, and therefore comes at the climax of his ministry. In the Jewish trial scene and again at Calvary there are references to a saying of Jesus concerning the temple's destruction. In fact, Jesus has spoken prophetically about the temple in his discourse early in his final week. It is not unlikely that these were amongst the factors which contributed to his arrest. In John's Gospel it is the raising of Lazarus which is the catalyst for the events which lead to his Jesus' death. It is John who brings action and word together in a single story.

The Evangelist sees this incident in tandem with the Cana narrative, with its theme of the inadequacy of the old order and its need for renewal and transformation. Now the suggestion is that all that the temple stands for will be destroyed and replaced by something new. People will no longer meet together in the Jerusalem temple in order to have access to God. The new temple will be the risen body of Jesus; here God meets human beings; this is the place of revelation, prayer and true worship. Jesus is the fulfilment of all that the temple stood for.

There are three aspects of the narrative which stimulate reflection.

During Christmastide I tend in prayer to think of myself as the stable/cave into which the child Jesus comes to dwell, his love and life enriching my poverty. Today's reading suggests that I think of myself as the Temple. I ask myself: When Jesus visits, what does he find? I sense that God's space is untidy and cluttered with all kinds of things: unnecessary material possessions and interests, alien preoccupations, attitudes, prejudices and anxieties, noise, busyness and mess, hubbub and clamour... Lent is a good time to identify and acknowledge the clutter, and with Jesus' help try to remove it. Perhaps there is something of this in Don Bosco's motto: Give me souls, take away the rest.

Zeal isn't a word I often use. Prophetic action is something I prefer to leave to others. I'm tempted to link it with fanatics, zealots of one kind or another, extreme allegiance to causes, violent protests. I don't feel comfortable with enthusiasts. Yet, there is a strong Christian tradition which uses zeal in a positive sense to describe generous commitment to the cause of God, zeal for souls. Don Bosco's dedication to the young is an expression of heroic Christian zeal. And through our baptismal anointing all of us are drawn into the prophetic ministry of Jesus. At times this does demand actions and words which challenge and disconcert and disturb. This could lead to conflict and pain. I need to rediscover my zeal and prophetic vocation this Lent.

The image of the Risen body of Jesus as our temple takes us to the heart of John's Gospel message. Jesus, the Word enfleshed and glorified, is the focal point of God's presence with us, the supreme revelation of God's saving love. The Risen Jesus is the space in which we live and move and have our being. Several times Jesus speaks of our being in him, sharing his life in intimate oneness. Discipleship is abiding where he abides. Salvation is sharing his life, now. Salesian presence and optimism are rooted here. Lent invites us to reflect on what God does for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and to ponder who we are in our union with Jesus, the new temple.