This Gospel is given to us on this third Sunday of Lent. The Lenten Season is an important part of the Christian year and a very important part of each of our spiritual journeys. Lent develops in the early church as a time of preparation for those to be baptized, a time of instruction, self-examination, preparation and then developed later in the church history as a time for all Christians to annually stop and spend 40 days in self-examination, in penitence. Lent is, in a very true sense of the word, an introspective season, a season when we are asked to look at ourselves.

We begin the season of Lent on Ash Wednesday with the words, "You are dust and to dust you will return." Sobering words. Words reminding us that we are creatures, that we are not of ourselves eternal. We do not live forever, that we have been created out of the dust of the earth. It used to be that we were worth in terms of the chemicals involved $3 and some odd cents. That may now be inflated closer to $10, but it's humbling to realize that our bodies are made up of earth and to earth we will return. That's how we begin Lent, with this very down-to-earth, basic awareness that we are creatures, that we will die.

We end Lent with the celebration of Easter, with the awareness that Christ is victorious over death and that we have the possibility of being new creations, new creations in Christ. So Lent is a period when we individually and corporately ask the questions about what it means to be human, what does it mean to be a part of the body of Christ, to be baptized people. What is our potential, we creatures made of dust, what might we become? Lent is about our spiritual journey from dust to new life, from creature to new creation in Christ.

Today's readings give us a framework for this meditation, this Lenten self-examination. The reading from Exodus in the Old Testament today is the Ten Commandments, an ancient basic guideline as to how we as individuals can live in community, how we live with our God, how we live with our fellow human beings. The Ten Commandments describe for us what it means to be a responsible person, a responsible creature. Undoubtedly these laws evolved over centuries of experience of the ancient nomadic Israelites and with the guidance of Moses and of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they were codified and became the basis of the law of the Old Testament and still crucially important as a basis, a guideline, for individuals in our day and age. How do we live in community? How do we live with our God?

The Epistle puts it in a very interesting understanding, that this new covenant with Christ, this new potential to be new creations will not be easy for us. "It will be a stumblingblock to the Jews," says Paul, "and it will be foolishness to the Greeks." The idea of a God who could be crucified will be a major stumblingblock. And the idea of a God who cares enough about us to be with us and to suffer with us will be foolishness to the Greeks. Undoubtedly, that is still true in our day and age.

The Gospel brings in a interesting, new way to deal with these questions. Jesus enters into the temple, the holy place, and what he sees angers him, and he takes a whip of cords and he chases the moneychangers and those selling cattle and doves out of the temple. Now this story probably makes some of us uncomfortable. We do not often see a picture in our minds of Jesus as being angry, very angry, angry enough to overturn tables, cause considerable chaos. We tend to have a picture of Jesus as sweet and subdued and so an image of Jesus as full of anger probably is unsettling to us. It might be healthy to remember that the opposite of love is not anger, not even hate; the opposite of love is apathy. Jesus cares deeply about the temple and about its misuse. Anger is not of itself something bad. We have to be careful how we use our anger. St. Paul says, "Be angry but sin not." Interesting use of words. Anger is not inappropriate as long as we do not allow it to alienate us from others and God. Be angry but sin not. No doubt in today's Gospel Jesus is angry. He's angry because this temple is the symbol for the people of Israel of God's presence with them. There's been a long history to the temple in Jerusalem. It was built by Solomon. It was the place where the ark of the covenant was housed. And the ark was the symbol of God's presence with the nomadic Jews as they wandered from Egypt to Israel. The symbol of the temple was the symbol of God's presence, God's continuing faithful presence with his people. Jesus is angry because of the misuse of the temple. There's nothing wrong with selling doves and cattle but not in this place. This place is to be used as a place of worship, a place where we remember and celebrate God's presence with us.

Temples have been a part of human history and all cultures. Temples are the things that archaeologists find when they dig up old ruins because the temples of ancient cultures were almost always the largest and the most important buildings, beautifully decorated, encrusted with gold and silver, with many memorials. It's interesting that temples in our day have got a less important place in our culture. The big buildings in most of our modern cities are sports domes, malls, skyscrapers. And nothing wrong with those. But we have to remember the importance of the temple in the midst of the community was the place that symbolized God's presence. The Raiders of the Lost Ark is a movie attempt to bring that into interesting understanding of the importance of God's presence into a movie fictional story. My guess is very few of us who saw Raiders of the Lost Ark connected it with the temple in Jerusalem. But for the Jewish people of Jesus' time, the temple is central. It is a sacred place.

Jesus then does something fascinating. He takes the idea of the temple and he relates it to his own body. He says to the people gathered there, "I will be able to destroy this temple and raise it up in three days." They say, "Oh, don't be silly." They say, "This has taken 46 years. This is Herod's temple. Taken 46 years to build this temple. You're going to tear it down and build it up in three days?" "No, no, I'm not referring to that temple. I'm referring to this temple, the temple of my body." No doubt after the death and resurrection of Jesus his followers remembered and reflected and shared with each other how he had said this way back that day in the temple.

Now what is Jesus saying here? Is he predicting the destruction of the temple building itself, which will occur in a few decades? Could be. Is he giving a foreshadowing of his own death and resurrection? Could well be. Or is this the gospeler John looking back and interpreting these words in the light of the resurrection? Could be. There's no doubt that Jesus is referring to his life, his personal life as being in a new sense, a temple, a place where God dwells.

The point is obvious. As the temple was the symbol of God's presence to the Jews, for Christians Jesus will be the symbol of God's presence. This is a major statement about Jesus, about the Christ. This is my Chosen One. God was in Christ. We hear it said in other places, but Jesus here today in the cleansing of the temple is relating his life to the presence of God.

The Epistle I referred to earlier reminds us of how difficult this will be for many people. It will be very difficult for the Jews, it'll be very difficult for the Greeks. It is still difficult for us in this day and age. And one of the primary purposes of the church is to help people wrestle with this difficulty.

Faith is not supposed to be easy. Nothing of any great worth in this world is easy. Faith is something we wrestle with. The church is a community of people drawn to the person of Jesus Christ wrestling with what this means--what does this mean in terms of my life and how I relate to God and to my fellow human beings? Jesus wants each of us to ask the question, "Who do you say that I am?" Am I the presence of the Living God? How does that change, radically change, our own personal lives?

Paul is going to take this concept of temple another step. The Old Testament saw the temple as the symbol of God's presence with the people of Israel. The New Testament sees Jesus as the new temple, the new place where God dwells. Emmanuel, God with us. Paul, in l Corinthians, chapter 6, verse 19, says, "Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Therefore, we must honor God with our body." Have to interpret the word body as the word life. In New Testament times when they talk about body, they are talking about the individual, they're not just talking about your body over and against your spirit. So let me read it with that understanding. "Do you not know that your life is the temple of the Holy Spirit? Then honor God with your life." The Old Testament temple was sacred to the Jewish people. Jesus is sacred as the presence of God to the New Testament people. So each of us have the potential of being sacred. By the grace of God we can become a holy temple.

This is part of Paul's wonderful theology about the body of Christ, that through baptism each of us are made members of the body of Christ. We are literally Christ's hands and feet. We become a part of that holy temple. If that be true, then my life is something holy and I must treat it as something holy. I must treat my body, my mind, my emotions, my whole being as something holy because God dwells within my life. It also means that all of my brothers and sisters are holy. I must treat every other human being as a sacred being, a holy temple. If I can begin to see the person who angers me, the person who cuts me off on the highway, the person who cuts in front of me at the post office, the person who irritates me with the way they mow their lawn early on Saturday morning, if I can begin to see that person as a holy temple in which God dwells, I will begin to change the way in which I relate to them.

The concept of the "the temple" is a basic concept of the Scriptures and to Christian life. The temple in almost every ancient culture was the place that symbolized God's presence with the people. The Old Testament temple was that symbolic place for Jewish people. Jesus saw that as a symbol of importance not only to the people but to himself personally. He is angered when he sees its misuse. He then relates that holy place to his own personal life. I AM the place in which God dwells. I AM the Christ. I AM God with the people. We are those who believe that God has made manifest in Jesus Christ the divine presence in a powerful and personal way and then Paul brings each of us into that understanding of temple. We, by the grace of God, can be holy temples. The Holy Spirit may dwell in our lives and we become holy.

It's an increasing of the understanding of creation, where in Genesis we are told that we are created in the image of God, that there is something about us that reflects the Divine Creator. Paul now says not only do we reflect the Divine Creator, the Holy Spirit dwells within us and we can be temples of the Holy Spirit.

So I ask, do you treat your own personal life as a holy temple, a sacred place, and do you see other human beings as holy places, holy beings who must be treated with respect and love? Lent is this wonderful, introspective season when we look at ourselves and see who we are and how we relate to God in Christ. We begin with dust, we end as new creatures in Christ, Holy Temples.

Let us pray.

Holy and gracious God, help us to remember that each of us is a holy temple. May we treat ourselves and others as sacred beings and by word and deed proclaim the Good News of God's presence and love. As Jesus cleansed the temple in Jerusalem, may we continually be cleansed by the presence of your Holy Spirit. We ask it in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.