Clearing the temple

I believe Christ is asking us all to enter into our grief and loss, whatever dark places are within us and come into a place of unconditional love, so that we can be healed.

When Jesus enters the temple to drive away the money changers and declares that the house of God will not be made a marketplace, he is doing something prophetic. He says he will tear the temple down and raise is again in three days. This is perhaps a scary aspect of the Christ that we want to think is all love.

Christ is telling the authorities that his body is the temple that will die and be raised in three days. To them this is unbelievable. To the disciples, who remembered these words of his, they then understood their meaning after his resurrection.

There may be parts of each of us that are crying out for resurrection. Parts that we have made a marketplace where we look for exchanges to take place, but not for a real relationship with our God. We see signs of resurrection around us—the green shoots beginning to show from the soil, the red wing black birds coming to make their nests, the sun staying with us a little longer each day. These signs give me hope, as does the gospel, that whatever Jesus is here to tear down within us will be built up with resurrecting life and light.

It is scary to enter into the places inside that Jesus wants to come and we are sometimes afraid to let him enter.

Jesus may challenge us to risk being vulnerable, to lose our composure; Jesus may challenge us to be real when we would rather be right, or at least to cover up our insecurities.

The Jesus who would tear down a temple and raise it in three days is one of action,
this is the Christ who destroys what is old and getting in the way of our faith
and also the Christ who is ready to give us life and give it abundantly.

Do we need to be destroyed in order to be given new life? I don’t think so. But sometimes we may need to give up control over some things, to let go, be able to lose something so that something more wonderful can be given to us by God. That is the cycle of death and resurrection—one of letting go of some things so that new things can be born in us.

This may be one of the most difficult things we humans have to let God do for us. The losses I have felt were able to be given to God in exchange for new life in Christ—new faith, new spiritual friendships that were right there waiting for me, giving me a sense of God’s presence with me and for me. I felt my own resurrection through the love around me.

Going through traumatic experiences is not a piece of cake. But we are never alone. God is giving us Christ, and Christ’s love through spiritual friends. Christ is asking us to trust that his love can enter our dark places and drive away our fear. We are being loved whether we know it or not, or can accept it or not. Christ is near at hand loving us. Christ is near at hand to help us, the love of Christ here to give us resurrection.