Episodes
Thursday Mar 15, 2012
PSA 11 March 2012
Thursday Mar 15, 2012
Thursday Mar 15, 2012
Muriel Sowden. In the Temple people had been trying to buy
God’s favour with sacrifices. They thought
that righteousness was a commodity they could buy and that if they made the
right offerings at the right time, they
could be assured of salvation; believing that salvation was in their own hands
and not God’s hands. Jesus was trying to
show them that this was not the way. His actions in the Temple that day
effectively brought the Temple worship to a complete standstill. Jesus offers
us a pattern for a Christian response in the secular world to bring about
justice in the name of Christ. The
Church needs to constantly call for justice and solidarity in both national and
international economic relations. This is trying to live out the Ten
Commandments, our first reading this Sunday, from the book of Exodus. God’s eternal, perfect law. As relevant
today, in our age as it has ever been. So the cleansing of the temple - what at
first may seem like a straightforward case of "zeal for the Lord's
house" actually has deeper levels of meaning. It has to do with the replacement of the old
way of worshipping God with a new way of relating to God. His ridding the Temple of all that is unclean
and sinful can also be seen as a metaphor for his work in us. First he converts us to new life, then he sets
about transforming us to be more Christ-like. The Jerusalem temple then
ultimately is symbolic of the body of Christ himself. Through baptism, we become part of
that body, and we are sustained by grace.
The Temple of God is not a building. The temple of God is God’s holy
people. We are God’s holy temple. A sermon for the third Sunday in Lent.
The readings were Exodus 20.1-17 and John 2.13-22.
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