"Jesus says: don't adapt to the world, don't adapt to the other person, but to yourself. The one for whom God created is enough!" The encouraging and uplifting homily of Father Szabolcs Szilágyi.
"As the Passover of the Jews approached, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found pedlars selling oxen, sheep and pigeons, and money-changers settling there. He made a whip out of rope and drove them all out of the temple, together with their sheep and oxen, scattered the money of the money changers, overturned their tables, and said to the dove merchants: "Take these away from here, do not make my Father's house a market hall!" His disciples remembered the words of Scripture: "Zeal for your house will consume me." However, the Jews spoke up and addressed him with these words: "What kind of miracle do you show that you dare to do this?" Jesus answered, "Destroy this temple, and on the third day I will raise it up." The Jews objected to him: "This temple was built for forty-six years, and you would rebuild it in three days?" But he was talking about the temple of his own body. When he rose from the dead, his disciples remembered these words and believed the Scriptures and the words of Jesus. When Jesus was in Jerusalem during the Passover, many people believed in him because they saw the miracles he did. However, Jesus did not trust them, because he knew them all, and he did not need anyone to enlighten him about man. He knew what was in man." (John 2:13-25)
Today's gospel also offers an opportunity to complete our preparation for Lent, especially from the point of view of our bodies. Jesus says that my body will be destroyed, but in three days I will rebuild it. We know that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. But still, we seem to talk little about it, or we talk a lot, just in the wrong context. Jesus cleanses the temple, which is our body.
Although it is widely believed that Christianity is anti-material, anti-body and anti-sex,
in fact, Christianity is the most pro-material, pro-body and pro-sex religion.
We only say that it is advisable to keep the framework given for the living of the material, the body and sex, otherwise it will cause a wound, instead of the person experiencing its value.
Why is it necessary to talk about our body now, about living it correctly?
Because our body longs to be clean, to be complete, to be a good environment for our lives. From the point of view of both our past and our present, we see that the body is not completely pure, but not in the moral sense of the word. If we look at our past, we see that our body carries the wounds we received. These may be physical, but this is also true in a spiritual sense. If someone was beaten regularly as a child, the wound may not be visible, but it is there in a spiritual sense, and in some cases it comes out and hurts.
But this is also true from the point of view of our present, our body still wants to be cleansed. For example, when someone is sad here and now, you can see it in their posture. Or that if someone has a serious psychological burden or difficulty, then it can easily become a psychosomatic illness, even medical science recognizes this. The soul affects the body to such an extent that it can specifically make it sick.
So it can be perceived from the past and present that our body longs to be cleansed. And this is where Jesus comes into the picture. If we look at the Gospel, Jesus says, tear down this temple and I will build it in three days. The disciples remember that Jesus speaks about his temple in a physical way, and indeed, after his death, he rose again three days later, that is, Jesus has the power to rebuild his own body. It means that
Jesus has the power to rebuild your body, to heal it, to cleanse it.
It is also included in the Gospel that Jesus' disciples remembered the words of Scripture: "Zeal for your house will consume me." At the same time, we read in Paul that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. What emerges from these two is that Jesus desires to heal and cleanse your body. But how is this accomplished? According to the Gospel, in three steps: the animal sellers, the money changers, and then the construction of the church.
Jesus drives the animals and the vendors out of the temple, saying that there is no need to sacrifice animals. That is, we do not need something or someone to stand before God and worship Him. You in yourself, as you are, are enough to worship God.
He heals and cleanses our body by taking the tools out of our hands. Because as long as we cling to tools, we believe that we need them to live, but we don't. But I am enough for God in myself. It frees my body, my whole person from these accumulations.
The second is money changers. Why was this necessary? The temple had a different currency than the surrounding peoples and the empire, and the money had to be exchanged, from which some profit was derived. In other words, you entered another space, another place, you had to adapt, you had to exchange money. And Jesus drives them out and overturns the tables of the money changers. Why are you doing this? Jesus is saying that man, you don't have to adapt. You don't have to change. Why is this so important? Because
adaptation becomes pretense, pretense becomes hypocrisy.
Jesus says conform to who I created you to be. Whoever you are in your created world, believe that this alone is enough! Don't adapt to the world, don't adapt to the other person, but to yourself. Be you!
The third step is the structure. Jesus says, destroy this temple and I will build it in three days. So Jesus has the power, beyond cleansing, to build you up. The way we live our lives, people get older, their abilities and possibilities decrease. In such cases, you can make two decisions: one is to accept this, the other is to start to despair.
Jesus says listen, I am able to rebuild you.
If Jesus will rebuild at the resurrection, why should I fear that I will grow old?
There are two questions that we could think about based on these. How do I treat my body, how much do I strive for its good living, its purity? How do I allow God to cleanse and build my body?
Source and featured image: 777
