I would like to look at the readings this weekend very broadly. I shall give the usual introduction I give at our scripture-study hours. The problem mankind has had, from its very beginning, is its determination to ignore the direction or guidance of the God Who made it – the Shepherd King of hearts – and its determination to live life on its own terms. In the words of our Lord the Gospel, to be a flock of ‘sheep without a shepherd.’ Christ was referring to the Jews who were listening carefully to His words as being without a true spiritual leadership (being deserted for a large part in Galilee by the Temple authorities, specifically the learned scribes and Pharisees). But we can speak broadly of humanity as being without a true spiritual leadership, having rejected the direction of the Creator God.
Our first parents Adam and Eve tried to become gods by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge – this was the temptation of the serpent in the garden, that by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, they would be like God. From being residents of paradise (paradise = communion with God), they were thrust out into a world of suffering, distress and confusion. The serpent had told Eve a lie – they had been nearer divinity before their trespass against God’s command concerning the tree, than they now were.
Every step that God then took, from the moment He was finished cursing the serpent, was intended to instruct wayward humanity in living a life in communion with God – and then a washing clean or purification of an elect people, so that mankind could enter little by little again into paradise (and paradise = communion with God). So, God mends the breach that our human wills creates with His will by (i) instruction and preparation, and (ii) means of purification.
“And now God spoke all these words which follow. ‘I, the Lord, AM thy God (He said); I, who rescued thee from the land of Egypt, where thou didst dwell in slavery. Thou shalt not defy Me by making other gods thy own. Thou shalt not carve images, or fashion the likeness of anything in heaven above, or on earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, to bow down and worship it. I, thy God, the Lord Almighty, am jealous in My love; be My enemy, and thy children, to the third and fourth generation, for thy guilt shall make amends; love Me, keep My commandments, and mercy shall be thine a thousandfold. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God lightly on thy lips; if a man uses that name lightly, the Lord will not acquit him of sin. Remember to keep the sabbath day holy. Six days for drudgery, for doing all the work thou hast to do; when the seventh day comes, it is a day of rest, consecrated to the Lord thy God. That day, all work shall be at an end, for thee and every son and daughter of thine, thy servants and serving-women, thy beasts, too, and the aliens that live within thy gates. It was six days the Lord spent in making heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them; on the seventh day He rested, and that is why the Lord has blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
Book of Exodus, 20: 1-11 [link]
In the first reading at Mass this weekend, we discover the first part, instruction, in the form of the ten commandments. Above is only the first half of the reading, featuring the three commandments that concern the love of God – it all begins there, with the caution against idolatry and the establishment of the Sabbath observance, and then continues with the love of neighbour. There soon follows in the book of Exodus the means of purification, which in those days meant the sacrifices of animals – animals who would take the place in substitution of men and women who had merited death by their sins. For, you see, all sin merits punishment. Somebody or some thing has to suffer. In the Old Testament, a catalogue of animals suffered for the sins of the people. In the New Testament, God Himself took on a human form so that He Who could not physically suffer in Himself, made Himself capable of suffering. As the Apostles taught us before and after the New Testament was written, Christ made Himself into sin, and suffered the punishment which is our due.
What is the substance of these ten commandments? Christ Himself told us: love of God first, and then love of the men and women we are obliged to call our neighbours. He obliges us, Who gave His life not only for us, but for all of them also. The ten commandments concern love. Do we claim to love God? Then we owe Him worship and praise for He is our Maker, and we are bound to His direction for our lives: His commandments. ‘If you keep My commandments,’ He has said time and again through prophets and priests and finally through Christ, ‘you show that you love Me.’ And then, do we really love our neighbour? Not just our family and friends, but those who annoy us and confuse us, who hate us and work to hurt us. We are asked to love even our enemies. Can we be like Christ, and die praying for our enemies? As S. Paul says in our second reading this weekend, this radical demand of love makes no sense in a world of men, human beings who cannot think with the mind of God – this level of charity, of love, is a grave obstacle for even the Jews who received the commandments from Moses, and certainly it is foolishness for every other race of men.
“So we read in scripture, ‘I will confound the wisdom of wise men, disappoint the calculations of the prudent.’ What has become of the wise men, the scribes, the philosophers of this age we live in? Must we not say that God has turned our worldly wisdom to folly? When God shewed us His wisdom, the world, with all its wisdom, could not find its way to God; and now God would use a foolish thing, our preaching, to save those who will believe in it. Here are the Jews asking for signs and wonders, here are the Greeks intent on their philosophy; but what we preach is Christ crucified; to the Jews, a discouragement, to the Gentiles, mere folly; but to us who have been called, Jew and Gentile alike, Christ the power of God, Christ the wisdom of God. So much wiser than men is God’s foolishness; so much stronger than men is God’s weakness.”
First letter of S. Paul to the Corinthians, 1: 19-25 [link]
But that strength of love – that weakness of God – is what the great English author and philosopher C. S. Lewis would call a ‘deeper magic,’ which appears futile and feeble, but ends up breaking the bonds of slavery and freeing souls to process through to God. The Ten Commandments teach us very much about human relations, but the whole structure of the Law of Moses was not meant to last forever, for the Messiah was meant (as the prophets had declared) to engrave the very logic of those commandments on the hearts of the men and women who loved Him. So, in our gospel story today, He sets about ending those animal sacrifices, by chasing the birds and animals intended for sacrifice out of the Temple, along with the animal sellers and merchants. Within fifty years, as He Himself later foretold, Jerusalem would be in ruins, the Temple razed to the ground by the Romans, who were exasperated with the constant tensions and rebellions fomented by militant Jews.
“So, in Cana of Galilee, Jesus began His miracles, and made known the glory that was His, so that His disciples learned to believe in Him. After this He went down to Capharnaum with His mother, His brethren, and His disciples, not staying there many days. And now the paschal feast which the Jews keep was drawing near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And in the temple there He found the merchants selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting at their trade. So He made a kind of whip out of cords, and drove them all, with their sheep and oxen, out of the temple, spilling the bankers’ coins and overthrowing their tables; and He said to the pigeon-sellers, ‘Take these away, do not turn My Father’s house into a place of barter.’ And His disciples remembered how it is written, ‘I am consumed with jealousy for the honour of Thy house.’ Then the Jews answered Him, ‘What sign canst Thou shew us as Thy warrant for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.’ At which the Jews said, ‘This temple took forty-six years to build; wilt Thou raise it up in three days?’ But the Temple He was speaking of was His own body; and when He had risen from the dead His disciples remembered His saying this, and learned to believe in the scriptures, and in the words Jesus had spoken. At this paschal season, while He was in Jerusalem for the feast, there were many who came to believe in His Name, upon seeing the miracles which He did.”
Gospel of S. John, 2: 11-23 [link]
Certainly, many will have begun to believe in His Name; this was just after Cana in Galilee, and the transformation of water into wine. That extraordinary miracle would have been told everywhere, and its marital context (it took place at a wedding) would have led thoughtful minds to remember the marital relationship of God with the nation of Israel. The principal locus of that relationship of love was the Temple, so Christ proceeded there. And now comes the beginning of His revolution of the religion of the nation, which ended on Maundy Thursday, with the establishment of the priesthood of the New Testament, and on Good Friday, with the one and final Sacrifice. The sacrificial system of the people would in this way be ‘rebooted,’ because the animal sacrifice had appeared – God in the flesh. ‘I shall be the sacrifice,’ Christ means to say with this rather violent interruption to the Temple processes. ‘I shall be the Temple and I shall be the Priest. You will destroy this Temple of My Body, and in three days I shall raise it up again.’
There have been three Temples in the history of the people, after the Tabernacle that Moses had established in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. The first King Solomon built upon the Temple Mount some three thousand years ago. The second was finished not long before the ministry of our Lord, with modifications by Herod the Great. Both were destroyed and have vanished into the mists of history. But the third Temple remains today, raised on the third day, the Body of Christ – a building of living stones – which we call the Church.
“Draw near to [Christ]; He is the living antitype of that stone which men rejected, which God has chosen and prized; you too must be built up on Him, stones that live and breathe, into a spiritual fabric; you must be a holy priesthood, to offer up that spiritual sacrifice which God accepts through Jesus Christ. So you will find in scripture the words, ‘Behold, I am setting down in Sion a corner-stone, chosen out and precious; those who believe in Him will not be disappointed.’ Prized, then, by you, the believers, He is something other to those who refuse belief; the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief stone at the corner, a stone to trip men’s feet, a boulder they stumble against. They stumble over God’s word, and refuse it belief; it is their destiny. Not so you; you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people God means to have for Himself; it is yours to proclaim the exploits of the God Who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.”
First letter of the Apostle S. Peter, 2: 4-9 [link]
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 