Destruction of the Temple

November 9, 2018 Friday
1st Reading: Ezk 47:1–2, 8–9, 122nd Reading: 1 Cor 3:9c–11, 16–17
Gospel: John 2:13-22

As the Passover of the Jews was at hand, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple court he found merchants selling oxen, sheep and doves, and money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the Temple court, together with the oxen and sheep. He knocked over the tables of the money-changers, scattering the coins, and ordered the people selling doves, “Take all this away and stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”His disciples recalled the words of Scripture: Zeal for your House devours me as a fire.The Jews then questioned Jesus, “Where are the miraculous signs which give you the right to do this?” And Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then replied, “The building of this temple has already taken forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?”Actually, Jesus was referring to the temple of his body. Only when he had risen from the dead did his disciples remember these words; then they believed both the Scripture and the words Jesus had spoken.

D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)

Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple (see also Matthew 24:2, Mark 13:2, and Luke 20:5-6). Jeremiah 7:1-15 made a similar prediction when he said that the Temple could end up like Shiloh destroyed by the Philistines if people continued sinning. Jeremiah continued: “But if you do amend your behavior and your actions, (…) then here in this place I will stay with you…”Because people did not change Jeremiah’s prophecy came to pass. The Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D. That’s history we can do little about but can be helpful to us if we take a different path. The people in the time of Jeremiah believed in Yahweh but they were rendering him lip service. The likes of them survived in the Pharisees whom Jesus called hypocrites. The bad news is that they survive up to our time in people living a split-level Christianity.

Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple as Jeremiah did. It was not irreversible because people only needed to come out of their mask of hypocrisy and serve God in word and deed. In our case, if there is any temple at risk, it is the temple of the so-called body of Christ. We are the body of Christ. We are now under attack from many powerful sides. But as a Church we will survive. Jesus had promised to be with us until the end of time. But that abiding presence of Christ may not be able to avert our own destruction if in freedom we choose the path taken by the people in the time of Jeremiah. – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.

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