The Paradox Par Excellence
The cleansing of the Jerusalem temple is a milestone in the life of Our Lord. The driven out only asked Him for a sign which would justify His actions. “But the Jewish leaders demanded, what are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.”(Jn. 2:18)
Certainly they were bewildered by His capacity for righteous indignation. Still they demand a sign. Actually He had given them one. The sign is that He is God! He had clearly told them that they had profaned His Father’s House. To ask for another sign was like asking for a light to see another similar light. Nevertheless, He did give them a second one. “All right, Jesus replied. Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn. 2:19).
The people who heard these words never forgot them. Three years, later, at the trial, they would bring them up again, in quite a distorted form, accusing Him of saying: “ Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days”. They ask Pilate to take precautions and guard His grave because they were still being haunted by His words.
The temple episode is echoed again in the trial and martyrdom of St. Stephen. When the persecutors charged. “The lying witness said, “This man is always speaking against the holy Temple and against the law of Moses” (Acts. 6:13).
Jesus threw down a big challenge when He tells them, “Destroy this temple. In three days, I will rebuild it”. He is challenging them directly to test His kingly and priestly powers by no less than a crucifixion. He would definitely rise up with next-to-impossible Resurrection. In effect He was saying: The temple is the place where God dwells. You have profaned the old temple. But there is another temple “Destroy this new temple, by crucifying me. In three days I shall rebuild it”. There is no “if” here. Definitely He is challenging them to test His kingly and priestly power.
It is quite likely that Our Lord spoke the challenging words pointing to His own Body. Sure, temples can be constructed of stone and wood as well as of flesh and bone. Christ’s body was a temple, because the fullness of God was dwelling in Him corporally. His challengers could think only in terms of the Jerusalem temple. No wonder, they ask: What! they exclaimed. It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild in three days? (Jn. 2:20). But as St. John very clearly puts it. “After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the scriptures and what Jesus had said” (Jn. 2:22).
The Jews ask for a sign. The sign was definitely His death and Resurrection. Later on, He would promise the same sign, under the symbol of Jonah. It is His death and Resurrection together that prove His authority.
