Gospel: John 2:13-22

 

The Gospel refers to the famous episode of Jesus who drives the animal dealers and the money-changers out of the Temple. How should we interpret Jesus’ action? 

 

It should be noted that it did not provoke any repression from the keepers of public order because it was seen as a typical prophetic action. For this reason, the Jews asked Jesus: “What sign have you to show us for doing this?” (Jn. 2:18), show us that you are truly acting in God’s name.

 

The dismissal of the dealers from the Temple has also been interpreted in a political and revolutionary sense, placing Jesus on a par with the zealots’ movement. In Jesus’ day they were awaiting a Messiah who would free Israel from Roman domination. But Jesus did not fulfil this expectation, so much so that some disciples abandoned him and Judas Iscariot even betrayed him. 

 

Let us, therefore, listen to the words that Jesus spoke: “take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade”. And the disciples then remembered that in the Psalm it is written: “zeal for your house has consumed me” (69 [68]: 10). 

 

This Psalm is a call for help in a situation of extreme danger, because of the hatred of enemies. The plight that Jesus was to live through in his Passion. Zeal for the Father and for his house was to bring him to the cross: his was the zeal of love that pays in person, not the zeal that would like to serve God through violence.