Jesus made a whip out of cords and drove the money-changers out of the temple area and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables: “Take these out of here and stop making the Father’s house a market-place.” John 2: 13-25
Regular readers of this weekly reflection might wonder why the universal Church celebrates the dedication of an Arch-Basilica on November 9th. That edifice, known familiarly to Romans as “the Lateran” is the oldest public church in the city of Rome and the oldest basilica in the Western World. It stands on the Caelian Hill, one of the famous Seven Hills of Rome, and overlooks the valley in which the Colosseum is located. The strip of land known as the Lateran is property that belonged to members of the ancient Laterani family, some of whom worked as administrators for a succession of Roman Emperors. The site was originally occupied by the Fort of the Roman Imperial Cavalry Bodyguards and the Palace of the Lateran Family. The land and the Lateran Palace were given by Emperor Constantine to Pope Sylvester I in the year 313. In his turn, Pope Sylvester laid the foundations of the Basilica there in 324. The Papal residence remained there until the Middle Ages, and the Basilica had a chequered history over the centuries with damage from fires. While it has been repaired and added to over the years, it still remains the Pope’s official parish church. The famous Lateran Treaty was signed there in February 1929. It was an agreement between the State of Italy and the Catholic Church which established the Vatican City as a Sovereign State and gave the Church some compensation for the Papal States which had been confiscated The Lateran Basilica is officially dedicated to Christ the Saviour, in honour of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist.
This dedication to John the Baptist and John the Evangelist is a significant help to us in understanding today’s gospel and the real meaning of the feast we celebrate. Let’s recall that John the Baptist was the first to identify Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah of God. John the Evangelist noted the Baptist’s witness in the very first chapter of his Gospel: “The next day, seeing Jesus coming towards him, John the Baptist said: ’Look, there’s the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world…I saw the Spirit coming down on him from heaven like a dove and resting on him…Yes, I have seen and I am the witness that he is the Chosen One of God.’” (John 1: 29-34) Moreover, at the beginning of the very next chapter of his Gospel with his story of how Jesus changed into wine the water in the jars used for ceremonial washing purposes, John not only gave his first sign that Jesus was he long-awaited Messiah of God but underlined the reality that the old system of ritual religion to which the Jewish people had grown accustomed was replaced by a better one ushered in by Jesus. Scripture scholars of notable standing such as J.N. Sanders and Raymone E. Brown have labelled the story of the wedding-feat of Cana as a “parable of the Messianic kingdom”
The story of the cleansing of the Temple in today’s gospel-reading which follows on immediately from the wedding-feast of Cana story, is a second indication that the old order was replaced by something new. Both Sanders and Raymond Brown have pointed out that the changing by Jesus of the ritual-purification water into wine represented a change from the old dispensation into “the new wine of the Gospel”.
In the gospel-reading of today, we hear how Jesus, in a fit of rage, did what nobody really expected. He drove out of the Temple precinct everyone who had turned it into a bazaar. That he was not immediately arrested and punished points to the fact that he probably enjoyed the support of the ordinary people who saw his miracles as proof that he was from God. Raymond Brown has observed that for Jesus to be in a position to cleanse the temple precincts meant that he “had to have public status as a prophet and a numerous following”. What Jesus did in the temple that day resonated with First Testament prophets who had railed against the profanation of God’s Temple. Indeed, the prophet Malachi had asserted that the Messiah “will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, he will purify the Levites (priests) and refine them like gold and silver” (Malachi 3:3). The point that the prophets were making was that, when the Messiah came, all the religious leaders would have to relinquish their authority. However, by the time Jesus arrived on the scene, the religious leaders had become very comfortable with their status and power, so comfortable that they were unable to allow a Messiah to replace them. After Jesus had caused havoc in the temple precincts, he cryptically declared: “destroy this sanctuary and within three days I will raise it up” (John 2: 19). Jesus, of course was describing himself as the replacement of the former Temple. He had come to the conclusion that it would be only through his death and resurrection that the kingdom of God would be fully realised.
What, then, is the relevance of all this for us? The Lateran Basilica, the very first church of public Christian worship built in Rome is a tangible reminder to us and to all Christians of two giants of Faith – John the Baptist and John the Evangelist who, in God’s Providence, had recognised Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ of God, who personified the boundless mercy, compassion and love of God, given freely to all humanity. They not only recognised Jesus as the Messiah but proclaimed him to all who would listen. Jesus, in his turn, dared to challenge a religious system that had kept ordinary people enslaved, while their religious leaders lived in comfort, relishing the power and status bestowed on them. Jesus proclaimed a God who had no appetite or desire for the blood sacrifice of animals. As he set about ushering in a new dispensation – the kingdom of God that promoted the dignity and freedom of all God’s children created in the image of God – he knew that God’s love could not be purchased by sacrifice. Eventually Jesus paid the ultimate price for daring to challenge a system that had kept people enslaved. The irony was that his crucifixion, death and resurrection destroyed death forever and brought the promise of eternal life to all humanity. As followers of Jesus and children of God, God’s Spirit dwells within us commissioning us, as that same Spirit had inspired Jesus, to reflect something of the mercy, compassion and love of God to everyone we encounter.