In today's Gospel, John 2: 13-25, Jesus goes up to Jerusalem. As Jesus enters Jerusalem, He approaches the Temple area and is outraged that the people have turned it into a marketplace and are also cheating people who are purchasing animals for sacrifice. He "made a whip out of cord and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, 'Take these out of here, and stop making my Father's house a marketplace.'" When the Jews challenged Jesus' authority and asked "'What sign can you show us for doing this?' Jesus answered: 'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.'"
The Temple to which Jesus is referring is His body, which they will crucify on Good Friday. Three days later, Jesus will rise from the dead. Like Jesus, we, too, are to treat our bodies as sacred. Our bodies, Temples of the Holy Spirit, will also be risen from the dead, as death has no power over us anymore than it had power over Jesus' body.
As with the material Temple in Jerusalem, our bodies are not to be abused. They are not to be sold for pleasure or for profit. We are holy in God's sight! We are His dwelling place, out of which flows graces that transform us and others so that God's presence in us radiates through our actions in such a way that all things are made new and give the honor and glory of God!
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