Zeal for your house will consume me…
How do we understand our relationship to the Church?
For the evangelist John, everything Jesus did gives witness to what Jesus was about, which was to die and to rise as the the sacrifice, the final sacrifice, necessary to restore humankind’s relationship with the Lord God. When, in John’s Gospel, Jesus drives the money-changers and animal vendors out of the temple area, he is asking the people to reconsider why they worship and how. The people had been following the law of Moses, and it was that law that ostensibly defined their relationship with God. But Jesus reveals that a new law must replace it, the law of love itself, which can only happen if he allows them to destroy the temple of his Body, that he might raise it up in three days. For Jesus is God’s temple through which salvation goes out to the world. Like the water flowing from beneath the threshold of the temple in Ezekiel or the waters of the river that gladden the city of God in Psalm 46, thanks to Jesus, God’s salvation will ripple out, gathering the people in faith and restoring them, that they might bear fresh fruit.
To mark the founding of Christendom and its fundamental mission to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to all the world, the Church designates this Sunday as the Feast of the Lateran Basilica in Rome, the home parish of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. But the Church is no longer simply a building, one building – we are God’s building, as Paul reminds the Corinthians. Jesus Christ himself laid the foundation, and it is that foundation which the Church – from Corinth to the present-day world – must build upon. As witnesses of the death and rising of Jesus, our mission in life is to bring salvation to the ends of the earth by revealing his love. That love – the Spirit of God – dwells in each one of us; it is the zeal that consumes us, making us ready to do his will. We are collectively the Body of Christ, building our lives upon God’s Word and God’s love. We are God’s temple through which salvation now goes out to all the world!
This post is based on Fr. Pat’s Scripture Class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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