by Fr. Tommy Lane
It must have been a shock for those admiring the beauty of the temple to hear Jesus say that the day would come when not one stone would be left on another. The temple was one of the ways to approach God, to get somewhat close to God, in the Old Covenant. In the New Covenant, Jesus is the way to approach our heavenly Father. When Jesus inaugurated the New Covenant by his death on the cross, the temple was superseded. That is why the curtain in the temple tore in two from top to bottom when Jesus died (Matt 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:44). Four decades later, the temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. Jesus is the way to the Father in the New Covenant; Jesus replaced the temple (Matt 12:6). A number of attempts were made to rebuild the temple in the early centuries, but those attempts failed in mysterious and strange ways. The temple could not be rebuilt because it was for the Old Covenant; since Jesus we are in the New Covenant.
Since Jesus replaced the temple as our way to the Father, this means he also replaced everything that used to take place in the temple. Jesus’ sacrifice of himself on the cross replaced all the sacrifices that used to take place every day in the temple. We read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ passion and death on Palm Sunday and Good Friday every year. There is another account of Jesus’ passion and death later in the New Testament, in the Letter to the Hebrews, but from a completely different viewpoint. It says when Jesus died, he entered the sanctuary in heaven taking not the blood of animals sacrificed in the temple but his own blood as one sacrifice for all time to save us (Heb 9:11-12).
We read in the Gospels about Jesus overturning the moneychangers’ tables in the temple (Matt 21:12; Mark 11:15; John 2:15). Those moneychangers collected money (during the month of Adar) for the sacrifice of a lamb every morning and evening in the temple to atone for sins. Jesus scattered their tables. Jesus would become the Lamb of God on the cross to take away our sins, and during the Last Supper he gave us another table instead—the table of the Eucharist to celebrate every day—sharing in his sacrifice on Calvary atoning for our sins. (for more see Lane, The Catholic Priesthood p34)
Gathered here around the table of the Eucharist we are spiritually present at Calvary. During the Last Supper, Jesus gave the apostles the bread and said it was his body, anticipating the sacrifice of his body on the cross the following day. He gave them the chalice and said, “This is my Blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” anticipating shedding his blood in sacrifice for us the following day. Then Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me.” Remembering during a Jewish liturgy was not just remembering or reenacting. It is much more. It is being present again at the original event and benefitting spiritually from it. So, when Jesus said, “Do this in memory of me,” he meant that when we celebrate Mass, when we gather around the table of the Eucharist, we are spiritually present at Calvary as he offered his body and blood in sacrifice for us just like the women and John were beside Jesus’ cross on Calvary. Jesus overturned the moneychangers’ tables who collected for the daily sacrifice every morning and evening in the temple to atone for sins. Instead, Jesus gave us the table of the Eucharist to celebrate every day his passion, death, and resurrection bringing us salvation.
All this helps us understand why Jesus said on one occasion, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) Jesus issues many invitations throughout the Gospels because he is the way to the Father in the New Covenant. In John, one of these invitations is “Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink.” (John 7:37) Jesus said this during a feast in the temple (Tabernacles) at the end of the dry season when they poured water around an altar praying for rain for their crops. Jesus is replacing something in the temple; they prayed for rain and Jesus said he is the answer to thirst. During the same feast they used to light four giant candelabras in the evening and Jesus issued another invitation, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12) Again, Jesus is replacing something in the temple; they lit candelabras during the feast and Jesus said he is the light of the world.
Above all we might think of Jesus’ invitation to the Eucharist: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” (John 6:53-56) We receive a different grace in every sacrament and those words of Jesus tell us a grace we receive in the Eucharist: the grace of unity with Jesus: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” (John 6:56) We want the grace of this unity with Jesus because Jesus is the way to the Father, and around the table of the Eucharist we are spiritually present at Calvary where the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, brings us salvation.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2022
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
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