Reading Backward Helps Us Read Forward

Lent 3 – Year B

Reading Backward Helps Us Read Forward

John 2:13-22

After Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he had said some three years earlier. From this resurrection they believed the scripture quoted and the Word of G*D that Jesus had become for them.

Remembering, the disciples finally connected Jesus' Resurrection with his Physique and Word. Both the disciples and the religiously observant missed a metaphor connecting temple with body, settling on the 46 years it took to build the temple rather than imagining the 6 days of creation, much less a day of resurrection. At last they could appreciate how Jesus responded to their opening bid for an external sign (temple) by raising them an internal one (body).

Now the disciples recognize the zeal needed for Jesus to live well while facing his consummation – how it was that Jesus was able to see and act when the idolatry of sacrifice commoditized secondary rules and pretended they were primary. So, after taking the time needed to plait a tool to visualize his word, Jesus loudly explained, "Get your stuff out of here and stop turning everything into a shopping mall!" while spilling coins from upended tables, stampeding animals and loosing birds to flippity-flop-and-flutter forth, and chasing money-changing loan sharks to and fro.

All this occurred as status, obliviously quo-ed, neared the presence and echo of Passover freedom returned and neared the presence and anticipation of Resurrection freedom already walking in from the wings. All this occurred from a missed metaphor.

In remembering, the disciples could see Jesus trusting himself to live free while not trusting those lookers-on who had yet catch the breadth and surprise of metaphoric living. Finally, the disciples saw how distrusting they had been and they took another step toward believing they, too, were temples of freedom, metaphors of life.