Monday, March 5, 2018
Monday, March 5, 2018
Reading: John 2:13-22
“Making a whip of cords,
[Jesus] drove all of them out of the temple…His disciples remembered that it
was written, 'Zeal for your house will consume me'." (John 2:15,17)
The Temple complex
in Jerusalem was built on a hill variously thought to be Mount Zion (2 Samuel
5:7) or Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:2). The courts were a group of graduated
rectangles set within each other, and as one moved from the outer walls inward
and toward the west, one came closer to the Holy of Holies. The most exterior
court was the Court of Gentiles, which was surrounded by colonnades, where the
rabbis taught. This court had been set aside, in keeping with Isaiah 56, for
any non-Israelites who wanted to worship God. But the Jewish Temple authorities
had allowed the Court to be filled with livestock and commerce related to their
own purity rites, ignoring God's command that it be a place of prayer. And then
Jesus arrived. Prophecy, absent from the life of Israel for four hundred years,
had returned.
God of all nations, you have
a heart of love for all who seek you. May your house always be a house of
prayer. Amen
- · Read Isaiah 56 and Jeremiah 7, referred to in this Gospel reading from John.
