Hanging on His Words

November 23, 2007

Friday of the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time

On the anniversary of the day on which the Gentiles had defiled it, on that very day it was re-consecrated with songs, harps, flutes, and cymbals. All the people prostrated themselves and adored and praised Heaven, who had given them success. For eight days they celebrated the dedication of the altar and joyfully offered holocausts and sacrifices of deliverance and praise. 1 Maccabees 4:54-56

Then Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.’” Luke 19:45-46

Piety

Jesus, help us join ourselves and our lives to you. Amen.

Study

http://www.usccb.org/nab/112307.shtml

The temples are getting “re-consecrated” today in both the Hebrew Bible and in the Good News.

Judas Maccabeus, son of Mattathias, has just completed his armed insurrection against the kings who were persecuted the Jews. As we learned yesterday from Mattathias’s lament in 12 Maccabees 2:7, the King destroyed the city and allowed strangers into the sanctuary. Mattathias lamented, “Woe is me! Why was I born to see the ruin of my people and the ruin of the holy city, and to sit idle while it is given into the hands of enemies, and the sanctuary into the hands of strangers?”

Now that his son has driven out the king and reclaimed the temple from the Gentiles, they bless the altar and celebrate.

Jesus has a reclamation project to undertake that is all his own. He goes into the temple to find merchants selling their wares to the pilgrims. He famously chases them out. In Isaiah 56:6-7, we learn the prophecy that Jesus refers to before he cleanses the temple area:

And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, ministering to him,

Loving the name of the LORD, and becoming his servants--

All who keep the Sabbath free from profanation and hold to my covenant,

Them I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer;

Their holocausts and sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar,

For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

The temple is for all who join themselves to the Lord. The merchants have joined themselves to the profits that they can make from selling doves for sacrifice. The armies of Judas joined themselves to violence to crush their enemies. The strangers defiled the temple and joined themselves to destruction, not the covenant with the Lord.

As Jesus cleansed the temple, the Pharisees began plotting a return to the violence of Judas Maccabeus. They began plotting ways to kill Jesus thus fulfilling the word of the Lord who said the “temple must be destroyed and rebuilt in three days.”

However, they could not find a way to kill Jesus because the people were truly joined to the Lord, literally “hanging on his every word.” In a matter of days, Jesus would be hanging on our sins, but for now, he remains connected to the people he has come to save.

Action

What do you need to cleanse from the temple of your life? In just a little more than one week, the Church will begin a new liturgical year. Instead of waiting until January 1 to make your New Year’s Resolution, why not consider re-consecrating your temple at the beginning of Advent and the new church year. What will you resolve to do or to change in this New Year to strengthen you life in piety, study and action?

Perhaps we should resolve that in the New Year, we will hang onto His every word.