Tuesday after Quasimodogeniti

Scripture: St. John 2:12-25 (NKJV)

2:12 After this He went down to Capernaum, He, His mother, His brothers, and His disciples; and they did not stay there many days.

13 Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. 15 When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. 16 And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” 17 Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”

18 So the Jews answered and said to Him, “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?”

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

20 Then the Jews said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?”

21 But He was speaking of the temple of His body. 22 Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.

23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. 24 But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, 25 and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.

Devotion

The Jews ask for a sign by which they can know that Jesus has the authority to cleanse the temple. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They think Jesus speaks of the Jerusalem temple. Even at the crucifixion
they still fail to understand, and say, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself!” (Matt. 27:40). Ironically, they fulfill the sign Jesus gave. They destroy the temple of His body, and He will raise it up in three days. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the sign that shows His authority to cleanse the temple.

Jesus’ death and resurrection is also the sign that demonstrates His authority to cleanse our hearts. Jesus has authority to forgive sins because He made satisfaction for all sins on the cross. He cleanses our hearts and makes us temples of the Holy Spirit. “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” (1 Cor. 6:19). The Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts by faith so that we fight temptation, practice chastity toward ourselves, and love toward our neighbors. Being temples of the Holy Spirit we live with the promise that Christ will raise us from the dead on the Last Day, even as He is risen from the dead unto eternity.

Prayer: Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we who have celebrated the solemnities of the Lord’s Resurrection may, by the help of Thy grace, bring forth the fruits thereof in our life and conversation; through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.