March 3, 2024（3rd Sunday in Lent）

Father Ken’s Message:

Good morning. Today is the Third Sunday of Lent; we are now half way through Lent. Today’s Gospel is about the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus’ visits to the Temple are only recorded three times in the Gospels: first is 40 days after birth Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple for a blessing; second is when Jesus was 12 years old and got lost from his parents during the Passover celebration so he took refuge inside the Temple; and third is the story in today’s Gospel of expelling the money changers from the Temple. Today’s Gospel gives us a good opportunity to review our history of the Temple in Bible history.

The first structure built to honor the presence of God was a tent of worship designed by Moses and his priests. It was made to house the Ark of the Covenant built in 1446 BC by Moses to protect and honor the contents of it: the ten commandments; the staff of Moses; and a jar of Manna. These gifts from God provided liberation of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt and to travel to the Promise Land of Israel. So, wherever they camped on the journey to Israel, the Tent of Worship was set-up as a symbol of God being with them. The first stone Temple was built by Solomon in 957 BC. The design copied the plans of Moses with the Ark of the Covenant inside the new building and outside a place for animal sacrifices. But it was destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 587 BC. during his invasion of Jerusalem and the Babylon Exile. The new King of Babylon King Cyrus released the Jewish prisoners taken by King Nebuchadnezzar and kindly helped them to return to their homeland along with money, food and building materials to rebuilt the City of Jerusalem and its great walls. The Second Temple was dedicated in 515 BC however the Ark of the Covenant became lost during the invasion of King Nebuchadnezzar. It is a mystery. In the Bible it is recorded that the prophet Jeremiah hid it to protect it, but it has still not been found (2 Maccabees chapter 2). So, instead of the Ark of the Covenant being the sacred item inside the new Temple, scrolls of the ancient Bible were placed in its place, this is the beginning of the idea of the “tabernacle” containing the presence of God. This Second Temple survived the even the invasion of Alexander the Great to Israel. But King Herod, who was selected by the Roman invaders to be one of the leaders of the Jewish people in 37 BC. To make the people happy, King Herod refurbished the aging Second Temple beginning in the year 19 BC. The renewal project apparently took 46 years as mentioned in the Gospel this morning, but history books record it being dedicated in the year 18 AD. King Herod’s expansion of the Temple made it even larger than Solomon’s Temple. It was an effort to promote himself as greater than King Solomon. Either way, in the year 70 AD, the Romans started a war with the Jews in Israel and destroyed Herod’s Temple. In the Gospel passage today, Jesus predicted this future happening and it was one of the pieces of evidence at his trial leading to his death sentence by the Jewish religious leaders to Pontius Pilate. However, the Romans did not destroy everything about the Herod’s Temple. Most of the ancient rubble from its destruction remain in place, including underground rooms, tunnels and the famous “western wall” of the Temple called the “wailing wall.”

The tent of Moses, the first temple of Solomon, the second temple and its expansion by King Herod were created as a spiritual space to imitate The Garden of Eden where God communicated with human beings. The 10 Commandments in our First Reading this morning were given by God as kind of rules of etiquette for living in the presence of God and other human beings. Adam and Eve broke those rules of etiquette by rejecting God’s advice and instead listened to the advice of the devil. They preferred the apples of the devil instead of the spiritual company of God. For this mistake they were expelled from the Garden of Paradise. In today’s cleansing of the Temple by Jesus we have a repeat of the incident of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The money changers and animal sellers in the Gospel made the same mistake as Adam and Eve seeking personal selfish enrichment with money in God’s House rather than spiritual enrichment from God. For this reason, Jesus expelled them from the Temple.

Halfway through Lent today, the Church is asking each of us to examine our own motives for attending Church. Are we entering into the physical church without entering into the spiritual church? Since the feast of Pentecost, 10 days after Jesus Ascension into Heaven, Catholic churches were built to imitate the ancient Temples of Solomon and Herod to provide space to worship God. But the same problem of a divided heart plagues each of us as it did Adam and Eve. Someone once said that “wherever God builds a House of Prayer the devil also builds a chapel inside of it.” We clergy and laity all have a divided heart because of Original Sin and we sometimes bring our divided hearts into the church bringing bad into the good. This is what happened to the people 2000 years ago in the Temple in Jerusalem that Jesus was angry about. Our hearts are the new temple of the presence of God redeemed by Jesus. The devil is always looking ways to turn us against God for his own glory. Selfishness tears our hearts apart and tears our relationship with God. Lent is a time to repair our damaged hearts by pushing away the temptations for personal pleasures versus using our time to give pleasure and help to others and praise to God.

I think us modern believers have misread the story of the Six days of Creation and the part where God resting on the Seventh day in the Book of Genesis. God did not rest on the seventh day because he was tired from working for six days creating everything. On the seventh day God took time to look at everything he had created to enjoy it. This is how we should spend our Sundays. We all became Catholics because we believe God is our Father and created us. Sunday is the day to come to church to show our love to God and to thank him for making us and to tell him how we have used our gift of life to praise him by helping other people. That is the correct spiritual disposition for coming to church. My friends let us live like Jesus who loved his Father in Heaven and sacrificed his life for us on the Cross to save us from the power of the devil. Amen.

Thank you very much.