Zeal For Your House

 John 2: 13-22

Jesus Clears the Temple Courts

¹³ When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. ¹⁵ So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

¹⁸ The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

²⁰ They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” ²¹ But the temple he had spoken of was his body. ²² After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

We celebrate the magnificent basilica of St. John Lateran, the seat of the Diocese of Rome and the Pope's official Church as Bishop of Rome. Part of the basilica dates back to 324 A.D. when it was dedicate as a place of worship, transformed from a home of the Lateran family. 

Our Gospel passage reminds us  that the House of God should be restricted to worship and not be a market place or anything else. We also have a hint of the Resurrection.  May we keep this as a holy day remembering that God not only dwells in our churches, but also in us!

Bro. Rene