Post-feast of the Exaltation of the Cross; Holy Martyrs Trophimus, Sabbatius and Dorymedontus (276-82).
Ephesians 2:19-3:7; Mark 11:11-23.
Read Mark 11:11-23
Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
It is wonderful how the evangelist Mark weaves together two stories in the life of Jesus to help us understand the meaning of both. Today’s passage combines the cleansing of the temple – one of Jesus’ most important interactions with the Jewish religion (his own religion, of course) – with a much less public event: the cursing of the fig tree. The point the gospel writer seems to be making is that the worship in the temple is missing something; like the fig tree, it is failing to bear a key fruit that will allow it to be life-giving to its participants. So, what is that fruit? What is the temple missing?
Part of the answer can be found in Jesus’ words, quoted from the book of Isaiah: “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’.” This does not say everything about how worship in the temple failed to live up to what God expected of it, but it tells us enough to go on: the Jewish temple was intended not only to be a sign of God’s goodness to Israel, but to the whole world. Somehow, the Jewish people had failed to realize and act on this vocation. This call – to be a light to all the nations – is taken up by Jesus in his own body, which he calls the temple in John’s Gospel. And since that temple is continued in his body, the Church, we might ask ourselves: “how is the Church – my Church – acting as a light to all nations?” Is the community that I gather in every week doing something to attract others to the light of Christ? If not, what might we expect to hear from Christ when we meet him?
Bible References