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CHRIST FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [EX 20:1-17 (OR EX 20:1-3,7-8,12-17); 1 COR 1:22-25; JN 2:13-25]
Today 3rd of March 2024, we celebrate the Third Sunday Of Lent. The gospel is taken from Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple. In purifying the Temple, Jesus was establishing a new world order, where there is true worship in spirit and in truth. This New Order will be realized when He builds a new sanctuary in Himself. The Lord said, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.” This is the urgent message of the gospel in today’s time, particularly when we are living in a fragmented and polarized world, where marriage and family life are under threat, where gender is confused, society is fragile and divided, the culture of death is promoted, wars are being fought on the international front, and many innocent lives killed in the process. More than ever, the world has forgotten the message of love, and particularly in many traditionally Christian countries, faith in Christ is greatly compromised, the ardour and zeal for Christ and the gospel has been lost.
Today’s scripture readings speak of a new order for humanity and creation. From the book of Exodus, Moses brought the Hebrews and a motley crowd out of Egypt, perhaps Egyptian slaves, and those from mixed marriages. This group of people will become the People of God when God made a covenant with them. They would be the realization of what God intended for the people to be a model of unity and charity for others. To help them to be a People of God, united in love and service, God gave them the Decalogue, the principles governing right relationship, with Him and with our fellowmen.
It is important to view the commandments, not as a list of prohibitions but positively as an invitation to spread the fire of love. These are principles rooted in the love of God and the love of our neighbours. The first four commandments establish the place of man in the world. The greatest danger in today’s time is when man makes himself god in the world. Idolatry in its worst form is not the worship of statues, not even the worship of created things, but the worship of self, manifested by materialism, individualism and atheism. The power of man is extolled above everything else, with the belief that only humanity can shape the world, ensure its progress and prosperity. For this reason, the Sabbath law is necessary to remind man of his place in the world, that God is the creator; and that his role is to be good stewards of God’s creation. It might appear strange that resting on the Sabbath is an obligation because man often does not allow his body to rest, and remember that work is but a means to an end, which is to build the family, maintain good relationships with our fellowmen; to be good stewards of God’s creation, and to recreate and enjoy the fruits of his labour and to worship God as His creator and divine provider.
The rest of the Decalogue provides us the principles of human relationships arising from our relationship with God, which is the love of our fellowmen. We are called to honour and respect the members of the family, especially our elders, protect the unity of marriage, the sanctity of life, the rights of privacy and private property; and observing integrity and honesty in our dealings with our neighbours, especially with respect to other’s reputation. Indeed, the Decalogue serves to help Israel to reflect the love of God in their lives, since they are called to be the Chosen People of God. If God were their king, and if they were to belong to God, necessarily, they must reflect God’s truth and love in their relationships with others.
Rightly so, the psalmist praises the commandments. He said, “The law of the Lord is perfect, it revives the soul. The rule of the Lord is to be trusted, it gives wisdom to the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, they gladden the heart. The command of the Lord is clear, it gives light to the eyes.” Clearly, they did not see the laws as hindrances to live a life of freedom and joy. On the contrary, observance of the laws of God inscribed in our hearts and in the natural order is the way to live harmoniously with ourselves, our neighbour and with the entire creation. The destruction of the world and the planet today is due to the failure to preserve the ecology of relationships; humanity’s relationship with creation, with our fellow brothers and sisters, and most of all, with God our creator.
However, this New Order is not simply built on laws alone, irrespective how beautiful the laws are, because we know that even when we have the laws to guide us, we are weak, selfish and insecure. The old sin of Adam lives in us. As St Paul wrote to Timothy, “the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane.” (1 Tim 1:9) St Paul himself in his letter to the Romans shared our struggles to do good but end up doing evil because “the law of sin lives in us.” He asked rhetorically, “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom 7:24-25)
Consequently, we are called to turn to Jesus who is for us the Wisdom and power of God. However, the wisdom of God in Jesus contradicts the wisdom of the world. “While the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, here are we preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle that they cannot get over, to the pagans madness.” The crucified Christ contradicted the Jews’ expectation of a triumphant Messiah. For the Messiah to be crucified on the cross underscored a curse, not a redemption. Moses taught that “anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse.” (Dt 21:23) The crucifixion proves that He was but a criminal, certainly not the Messiah, for He must have power seen in miracles as they represent “signs of power.” For the Greeks, God was immutable and apathetic. God, who is perfect, cannot change and cannot feel, otherwise He would be controlled and manipulated by us. A God who suffered was a contradiction in terms. God is immortal and not subject to change as mortal beings. Incarnation of God is totally unacceptable.
But Jesus in His death and resurrection, demonstrated that “Christ is the power and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” God shows through the incarnation of our Lord, His passion, death and resurrection that God feels with us in our humanity and redeems us through the humanity of our Lord. He became one with us, and one of us, except sin, to be our leader in salvation. By His teaching, unconditional love and compassion, He shows us the face and heart of His Father. God’s way is not the way of man. His wisdom is beyond our comprehension because no one could imagine that God would raise Jesus from the dead. This is the final proof of His divinity and His divine sonship and our Messiah. Indeed, when the Jews asked for a sign from Him, He remarked, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.” And St John gave us the footnote, “he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said.”
Today, we are invited to follow Jesus, to renew the Temple of God. After driving out the merchants and upsetting their stalls, He said, “Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.” Then His disciples remembered the words of scripture: Zeal for your house will devour me. We must renew humanity with a true love for God and for our neighbours. This is what we are called to do to renew humanity. The world today needs mentors and direction. We need to show the world how to love, to live a life of peace, justice, integrity and compassion for all. Jesus is the Way for us to light up this flame of love in the world. He comes not just to show us the Way but also to fire us up at Pentecost by giving us the Holy Spirit, the love of the Father and the Son. He will empower us to share the love of Jesus and the Father. He will give us the zeal for His house too.
Written by His Eminence, Cardinal William SC Goh, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore, the next Pope
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