Today's Gospel

Jesus Wants to Overturn Your Life

Welcome back to "Radical and Relevant," where every day we get to explore the gospel. Just sink our hearts, our minds, our souls into it a little deeper to learn a little more and looking for a word or phrase or an idea that jumps out at you that the Holy Spirit uses to capture your attention. Today's reading is from the gospel John chapter 2 verses 13 through 22. The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple, he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers at their business.

And making a whip of cords, he drove them all with the sheep and the oxen out of the temple. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away. You shall not make my father's house a house of trade." His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for thy house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign have you to show us for doing this?" And Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "It has taken 46 years to build this temple, and you'll raise it up in three days." But Jesus spoke of the temple of his body. When, therefore, He was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what He had said, and they believed the Scripture and the Word which Jesus had spoken. What jumps out at you today?

He's going through the temple. He's got his whips, and he's getting everything out of the temple, and he's turning over the money changers. And I'm sure people go crazy, right? There's a great temptation when we read the scriptures to develop this otherness, this situation where we see ourselves in Jesus and the disciples, and we see other people in all the other stuff going on. The reality is, is that wisdom is to learn to see ourselves in every person in the Scriptures, to see ourselves in every situation in the Scriptures.

And so today, to ask ourselves, "Okay, you might be living a good life." But there might be one aspect of your life that Jesus wants to come in with the whips and turn over the tables, and he wants to cast that out of your life. And so, Jesus was talking about the temple of his body. They were talking about the temple of the temple. We're taught that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. And what does God want to cast out of your life at this moment? What does God want to overturn in your life the same way he overturned the money changers' tables?

What does Jesus want to overturn in your life right now, and will we wait for him to come in and do it, or will we invite him to? I say, "Jesus, this needs overturning my life. Come and help me overturn this." Have a great day. And remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.