THE TEXT BELOW IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO COMMENTARY BY FR. FERNANDO ARMELLINI

Video Text Download version

A good Sunday for everyone. 

The Gospel reading for this third Sunday of Lent presents us with a somewhat uncomfortable scene, especially for the devout, who are used to imagining Jesus as always tender, gentle, and loving. Instead, today they see Him angry, holding a whip, driving the merchants from the temple. He then overturns the tables of the money changers. This is, therefore, a rather harsh scene for the devout. 

But on the other hand, it is a scene that appeals to the secular world, which wants to remind Christians that Jesus needs to act today by wielding the whip to address certain not-very-evangelical issues within the church, including the discomfort between faith and money. The Christians, in turn, respond that Jesus must enter with the whip into their secular temples, where the worship of money prevails, into the banks, the financial temples of today, where the harsh laws of the market that starve the people are enforced. 

These positions are controversial and stem from a reductive interpretation, or rather from a misunderstanding of the deepest meaning Jesus intended in this gesture. This gesture is so significant that all four evangelists mention it, with one difference. John places it at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, while the other evangelists place it at the end. Who is right? I believe it’s John. 

This episode likely took place at the beginning, during the first of the three Passover festivals Jesus attended in Jerusalem. Only the evangelist John mentions three Passover festivals that Jesus observed during his public ministry. From this detail, we can infer that Jesus’ public ministry lasted three years. The other evangelists mention only one Passover festival that Jesus celebrated in Jerusalem, the last one, which led to Jesus’ condemnation to death. Since the synoptic evangelists refer to only one Passover, they clearly place this event at the end. 

What message did John intend to convey through Jesus’ gesture at the start of his gospel? He aimed to show that this gesture encapsulates the entire mission Jesus will undertake. It signifies that a certain relationship with God has ended, and now Jesus has come to establish a new, completely different relationship with God—the heavenly Father. The synoptic gospels depict this gesture at the end, a moment that causes the cup to overflow and ultimately leads to Jesus’ death. They present it to tell us that Jesus has fulfilled his mission, one that has challenged the Jewish religion, supported by the spiritual leaders who, naturally, were unwilling to accept the newness Jesus brought. 

It will be this specific mission that Jesus undertakes that will lead to his condemnation to death. We will attempt a precise analysis of this text to understand the deep meaning I mentioned earlier and, of course, to find a message for our spiritual life today. 

Let’s listen to what has happened: 

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

The gesture Jesus makes is introduced by the evangelist with a time reference: these were the days when Jerusalem was preparing for the Passover feast. Picture the bustling city crowd. Jerusalem usually had about 40,000 residents, but during Passover, the number swelled to 120,000 as pilgrims arrived not only from across Israel but also from around the world. Every Israelite was required to visit the Lord’s temple at least once in their lifetime, and Jews living in cities of the Roman Empire would come to Jerusalem specifically for the Passover. 

I want to mention, at this point, the money that circulated in the city during Passover. Josephus Flavius, the historian who was also a temple priest and therefore knew the environment very well, says that between 18 and 20,000 lambs were slaughtered, which, of course, increased in price during Passover. Let’s consider the profit those who had the license to sell these lambs made. Then there are the offerings in the temple; in the court of the women, which I will show shortly, there were 13 coffers where everyone was invited to place offerings, and during Passover, these free offerings were plentiful. 

And then, the money changers’ profits: because anyone wanting to make these offerings couldn’t bring into the temple the coins used in the city markets, as those coins bore the images of Tiberius and his mother, Livia, so they couldn’t be accepted in the temple. These coins had to be exchanged for ‘perutot,’ which were the coins permitted for offerings in the temple, and later, the temple could exchange “perutot” for coins used to buy goods in the city. It’s clear that the money changers earned a commission for their work; their profit wasn’t just from setting up a table to exchange coins, but also from having to obtain a license to do this work. And let’s be upfront: all these licenses were controlled by the family of Annas and Caiaphas. They managed all this money flow. 

For Passover, contributions were brought to Jerusalem—coins that all Israelites were required to pay for the temple and its services. Everyone was required to pay half a shekel, equal to two denarii, the wages of two days’ work. These contributions were collected in all the cities of the Roman Empire where Jews lived and, for Passover, were taken to Jerusalem. At that time, the temple was considered the largest bank in the entire Ancient Middle East. 

The second book of Maccabees, in chapter three, states that the treasury of Jerusalem possessed immense wealth, so much so that its total was incalculable. This is also when Jesus made his gesture. Let’s look at the place and the temple. You can see it behind me. When we say the ‘temple,’ we need to clarify that the term refers to the entire esplanade, ‘ierós’ in Greek. The evangelists are very precise in their terminology. That esplanade is massive. 

You can’t quite grasp how large it was, but calculations indicate it covers an area equivalent to 22 regulation soccer fields. In this open space, anyone could walk through it, even pagans. I invite you to look at the construction to the south of the temple. The temple was oriented toward the east, where the sun rises, and what you see here is significant; it is the royal portico, the place where Jesus made his gesture. 

What was this royal portico? It was the place where the most profitable activity took place because you could buy the best lambs and pigeons there. We will see shortly that the market around the temple was very large and extensive, but the area where they purchased the best materials for worship was in the royal portico. Therefore, the sanctuary was located in the center of this temple esplanade. 

Let us clearly distinguish between the temple and the sanctuary so we can better understand what Jesus has done. I will now show you the sanctuary in the background. Notice that the entire temple was made up of a series of barriers because the people had to be chosen until only the elite, the purest individuals, remained—the only ones who could access the sanctuary where the glory of the Lord was present. 

Note the sanctuary in the center, separated and isolated by a wall, as shown. It was five feet high and contained 13 Greek inscriptions. These read: “From here, only Israelites may enter; if any pagan crosses this barrier, he will be subject to death.” Israelites, both men and women, could enter. This was the first barrier. The unclean had to stay outside; they could not approach the sanctuary. Next, they entered the court of the women (as indicated), where women had to stop; they could go no further. It was in this court of the women that those alms chests I mentioned earlier were located. 

Then you see a small, very pretty staircase leading to Nicanor’s door. It was the most beautiful of the temples; it was gold. It is said that the gold on that door was as thick as a coin. Only men could cross it to enter the sanctuary. Now we come into the sanctuary, where the altar for offerings and sacrifices stood, smoke rising from it. The sanctuary consisted of three parts: an atrium, then the ‘holy,’ and finally the ‘holy of holies,’ which only the high priest could enter. 

In the sanctuary, other priests could also enter, but only once a year could the high priest enter the Holy of Holies, where God’s glory dwelt. Now, I’m going to show you the other places where this market was located. In the background, you see a reconstruction of this temple; you can see the entire esplanade. 

Notice again the actual portico where Jesus made his gesture. From this royal portico, a majestic staircase emerges through the Coponius gate, the most beautiful. In the western part of this temple esplanade, a street is marked—a Herodian street; it was 8.5 meters wide, with stores on both sides selling various objects and animals necessary for temple worship. That street was dedicated to commerce. 

The evangelist John says that Jesus drove the sheep and the oxen and then went to those who sold doves in the temple. The oxen were not in the royal portico. Of the eight gates, I don’t know which could be wide enough to allow the oxen to pass through. The evangelist John states that Jesus condemned this practice of offering animals to God. In fact, oxen were sold in a marketplace called that, located on the hillside of the Mount of Olives, and oxen were also sold near the brook Kidron. 

This brook Kidron can be found on the Mount of Olives, along the eastern wall of the temple’s esplanade, where Solomon’s porch was located. During Passover, this area became the marketplace around the temple of the Lord, as people offered gifts to God. Now the question is: Does God want any of these offerings? Jesus came to say enough to this way of relating to the Lord, because now there is a new relationship he came to establish with the heavenly Father. 

I will show you a reconstruction of what was likely the royal portico in the background. It measured 185 meters in length and spanned the entire south side of the esplanade. There were four rows of columns, each ten meters tall, topped with a 1.8-meter-high Corinthian capital, which was marvelous. Each row had 40 columns, for a total of 160 magnificent columns supporting this part of the royal portico. It is at that place that Jesus made that gesture, but the oxen were not present (this is just a parenthesis). 

Let us now see what Jesus did. He made a whip from cords. Only the evangelist John mentions this whip of cords. No sticks or weapons could be brought into the temple, so Jesus must have used the ropes that kept the animals still. What did he do? He drove out the sheep and oxen from the temple, then overturned the tables of the money changers. 

Let’s try to understand the meaning of this gesture. The most obvious and immediate point is the condemnation of the combination of religion and money, a message that remains relevant to the Church today. We are aware of the dark chapters in the Church’s history related to this very mix of wealth and worship. 

But this is not the most important message; the more troubling one is another. Let’s see what Jesus did. He drove away all the animals used for sacrifices because God no longer wants this form of religion. What does it mean that he disliked animals? We know that in ancient times, people offered these animals to their gods. They believed that by giving something to God, they would later receive blessings and favors in return. Israel, like all other peoples, offered animals to their God. 

What did Jesus mean by his gesture? He simply said that God does not want animal sacrifices or any sacrifices at all. That’s the key point. God doesn’t want sacrifices because his favors cannot be bought. We cannot give anything to God because his gifts are completely free. Offering something to God to get his blessings is a form of buying and selling that God does not support. It’s a commercial relationship that runs counter to his nature. He gives his love freely, and when we accept it, we are happy. We have nothing to give to God. 

Let’s consider a certain spirituality ingrained in us, in which we believe we must make sacrifices because they might lead to the salvation of sinners and other goals. Jesus never spoke of sacrifices to be offered to God. When he did mention them, he said, ‘I want works of love, not sacrifices.’ Our liturgies: we think that, through our songs and devotions, we are giving something to God, who will then look upon us kindly. Enough! Our liturgies and songs are expressions of our joy in being with Him and of our gratitude for the love He has shown us, but they do not give anything to God. Even our good deeds, we assume, will be valued by God if offered to Him, and He will store up a treasure for us through the merits we have earned. 

Sometimes we hear it said that God loves and blesses you in this way… NO. God always loves and blesses you. You will be truly happy if you allow yourself to be enveloped by this love and embrace this dynamic of free love. He has given you His very life, and it is this life that drives you to do good, to love, and to give yourself freely. This love should manifest in your life, and when it shows itself through you, you will be happy because you will resemble the heavenly Father. It’s not about giving Him something; the acts of love we perform are expressions of the divine life we’ve received. Therefore, acts of love transform us into better people and make the likeness of the heavenly Father shine in us. Let’s stop thinking that we can give anything to God. We need to abandon this idea of a religion of sacrifices offered to God, because Jesus canceled all the sacrifices that were once made. 

There is a third aspect. Who does he drive out with that whip? He doesn’t just cast out the animals; he also drives out the sellers and even the buyers. John says he cast out all, but the evangelists Matthew and Mark specify that he removed the sellers and buyers because they were engaged in this religious practice. Jesus drives out these people who, although they are good, relate to God through sacrifices. NO, enough. 

Let’s remember who was cast out of the temple. At the eight gates of the temple esplanade, at the entrance, stood the Levites, the sacristans of that time. What were they doing? They were ensuring that unclean people did not enter, because the book of Leviticus states that the blind and the lame, along with the deformed, the hunchbacked, and the lame, could not enter. Therefore, paralytics and lepers were to stay outside the temple. Sinners were also kept out. They cast out these people who had nothing to offer God but their own misery, weakness, and frailty. All of them were cast out of the temple. Jesus does not cast them out. 

In fact, the evangelist Matthew, after narrating the episode, concludes by stating that the blind and the lame came to Jesus in the temple. He welcomed them, but he cast out those who were pure, those who offered sacrifices to God. Then the evangelist concludes by saying that he turns to the sellers of doves and tells them: “Take that out of here and do not turn my Father’s house into a marketplace.” He is not just condemning the fact that money was circulating—yes, this was scandalous, this mixture—but it is the market in relation to God that he cannot bear. 

The idea of earning merit before God by offering him something doesn’t belong in His Father’s house. God’s house isn’t a marketplace where one can buy favor. The Father isn’t an employer who grants work; he is a father with whom one relates freely out of love. Additionally, the pigeon sellers are those who exploit religion to take advantage of the poor, since doves were the sacrifices offered by the impoverished. Even Joseph and Mary offered two doves because, at that time, they didn’t yet realize that Jesus would one day end this form of religiosity—something even the family of Nazareth had been raised to observe. 

At this point, the disciples recall the verse from Psalm 69, which says that the psalmist, out of love for the house of the Lord, has been misunderstood and that his passion for God’s house has consumed him; he has become a stranger, even to his own brothers. They apply this verse to what Jesus is doing and say that his gesture and stance, motivated by love for the temple and a desire for a pure relationship with God, will consume him. In other words, it will lead to his removal by the guardians of a religion that God no longer endorses—yet it is a religion that offers power and wealth to those who control it. 

Now we come to the central message of the passage: Jesus invites us to make the sanctuary disappear, not the temple; the sanctuary where God was found must be destroyed because he will raise a new one. 

Let us listen: 

The Jews then responded to him, ‘What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.’ They replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?’ But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 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.

The gesture Jesus made could not help but be considered sacrilegious by the religious authorities. In fact, the evangelist notes that the Jews stared at Jesus and said to him, ‘Perform a miracle to make it clear that God wants to justify what you did.’ Who are these Jews? They are not all Israelites, but all the people of Israel. In John’s gospel, this term appears 71 times and refers not to all the Jews, but to the enemies and opponents of Jesus, those who reject his gospel. These are the leaders, the scribes, the elders—those ultimately responsible for his condemnation to death. 

What does Jesus answer? ‘Undo this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.’ It is a cryptic response: ‘undo this sanctuary.’ The Greek verb Λύσατε (Lyzate) doesn’t mean to tear it down but to make it disappear; this sanctuary no longer makes sense because in three days I will present a new, authentic one. What did Jesus mean by that—perhaps a criticism similar to what the prophets made, a denunciation of the temple’s corruption and abuses? 

We remember the critiques of Jeremiah, Amos, Isaiah… From the very first chapter, God says, “Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations—I cannot endure your worthless assemblies. Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals, I hate with all my being. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Wash yourselves, purify yourselves, remove your evil deeds from my sight. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” 

What Jesus says is not merely a criticism like the prophets’. He says: dissolve it, finish it, undo this sanctuary. What was the sanctuary? We were careful not to confuse it with the temple, which included the entire esplanade. The sanctuary was the central part of the building where the Israelites believed the Lord was present; anyone who wanted to meet him should go there. Pilgrims who traveled to Jerusalem went to meet the Lord and behold his face. We remember how often in the psalms it is said: “I seek your face, Lord.” Psalm 84 is beautiful. It is the pilgrim who reaches the top of the Mount of Olives and contemplates the esplanade with the sanctuary at its center, where his beloved Lord dwells, and says: “How pleasant are your dwellings, O Lord.” It is like the lover who, when she sees the house of her beloved, says: How wonderful is your house… my soul longs for the courts of the Lord… I want to arrive as soon as possible at the lower part of this Mount of Olives so that I can then enter the temple and meet the Lord in his sanctuary! This was the Israelites’ conception of the sanctuary. 

What Jesus says is not a criticism of the corruption of the sanctuary, the temple, or the abuses… No, it is that this sanctuary no longer makes sense; it is no longer useful. Its function is finished. Dismantle this temple, do away with it. Why? Because Jesus is now the sanctuary where God manifests Himself, where God shows His face, not in this material temple, but in His person. It is in Jesus that we see the face of God, in Jesus that we meet His heavenly Father. The Jews answer him, for they have not understood the words of Jesus: “It had taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary, and you are going to erect it in three days?” The evangelist notes that he was speaking of the sanctuary of His person. 

This historical note is valuable because we know that the temple in Jerusalem was begun in 19 B.C. Remember that King Herod ordered 10,000 workers and selected 1,000 priests to learn masonry, as these priests were responsible for building the sanctuary; no secular hand was to touch the stones of the structure that was to become the Lord’s dwelling. Starting from 19 and adding the 46 years mentioned by the Jews, we arrive at the Passover of the year 28, when Jesus was 35, a few months before he began his public ministry. Only John left us this precious historical note. 

Jesus is therefore speaking now of this new temple, which is His person, and it is in this temple that we now meet the Lord. There is an annotation from the evangelist that says the disciples did not understand what Jesus said; they understood it after the Passover — the truth of the new temple, which is the person of Jesus. 

Let’s now examine what the New Testament says about their understanding of the temple of the Lord, which is certainly the person of Jesus. However, alongside his person is the entire community of those who have committed themselves to him, those who have accepted the gift of his Spirit—his own life present in all of them—forming the temple with the risen Christ as its cornerstone. 

Paul foremost remembers this truth in his letter to the Corinthians, who face a divided and quarrelsome community with many problems. What does Paul do? He recalls this very truth and says, ‘Do you not know, you quarrelsome people, that you forget that you are the sanctuary of God? You forget that the Spirit of God dwells in you, that the same divine life circulates in you, that you are the sanctuary of God that is in the risen Christ; you are with him in the new sanctuary, and you forget that the temple of God is holy and you are the temple.’ 

The entire community recognizes that it is the temple of the Lord, the sanctuary. They also understood another truth: in the temple of Jerusalem, barriers kept people who might be slightly unclean from approaching the Lord—only the high priest entered the holy of holies. They knew that since Easter, the temple’s veil had been torn, eliminating all divisions in the new temple. There is no longer a distinction among Greeks, Jews, pagans… now, all who receive the Spirit of Christ are part of this one sanctuary. 

And it is also very beautiful that the letter to the Ephesians states in the second chapter: “Christ has broken down all walls of partition and has founded everything on the foundation of the apostles and prophets; having Christ Jesus as its cornerstone, and upon this stone the whole building grows up as a holy sanctuary in the Lord.” Finally, what you now understand about the offerings made in the temple: What happens now in the new temple? 

In the first letter of Peter, chapter two, it says: “Drawing near to him, to Christ, the living stone, rejected by people, but precious in the sight of God, you are now living stones.” The building is not made of physical stones; it is the people who are the living stones that build the structure, this spiritual sanctuary for a holy priesthood, to offer offerings that are only love, manifesting the divine life that Christ has communicated to us. Therefore, the scent of incense, which God is not concerned with, is set aside, but the scent of the spikenard, which symbolizes the love given—namely, the love of Christ—an absolutely gratuitous love that moves us to love and to give our lives, even for those who do evil to us, for our enemies. 

Let’s listen now to how John concludes this episode: 

Now, while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about people, for he knew what was in each person. 

Perhaps the conclusion of this episode is a bit surprising. We wonder why Jesus does not warmly welcome these people who want to pledge allegiance to him, even though they seem well-disposed toward him. Let’s reflect — since we are at the beginning of Jesus’s public life — and ask what they might have understood about the proposal of a new world Jesus was offering, or about the new relationship with God he was beginning to introduce. 

This is the danger: giving him trust without fully understanding what this entails. The gospel passage says that Jesus knows the hearts of the people and must have seen in their eyes that they are sincere, but that it is too soon to fully accept them, so that they already see themselves as disciples and thus risk deceiving themselves, thinking they are already in the new world, in the kingdom of God. 

He still sees them very much attached to the old religion in their hearts, the one people hold onto so much; after all, it is the religion that makes people feel superior to others because, through it, they can offer sacrifices to God with good deeds; and it also gives hope for a reward from God because they believe they’ve earned it by obeying His commands. Jesus spoke out strongly against this religion that must be demolished; but maybe it is a religion that we still nurture today, and that’s why Jesus doesn’t reject these people nor us, but invites us to reflect on what we truly understand of His message so we don’t get carried away by fragile enthusiasms. 

Then Jesus seems to want to tell them, and also us, to ‘go deep, little by little, into my proposal for a new world and a new relationship with the heavenly Father, and become aware of what it means for you to belong to the new sanctuary, which is my person.’ 

I wish you all a good Sunday, a great week, and a safe journey throughout this Lenten season.