Rebuilding God's House

Homily for Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Timie

After a few weeks of beginning the Liturgy of the Word with some of the letters of St. Paul, we now return to the Hebrew Scriptures for our first reading. Yesterday, we heard that King Cyrus released the Jews from the Babylonian captivity as Persia defeated Assyria and freed the Jewish captives. Today, we hear of yet another king of Persia, King Darius.

Although Cyrus sent the Jews back to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem, they did not have the resources to complete the task and were challenged who did not believe that Kings Cyrus and Darius ordered the rebuilding of the temple. After finding a memorandum by King Cyrus decreeing that the temple should be rebuilt, King Darius issued a similar decree, asking that the Jews should be repaid their expenses. After this edict, the temple was completed in just five years.

Both our churches and the Temple of Jerusalem are buildings, structures made of stone and wood. The God of Israel lived among the Children of Israel just as the same God now dwells among those who have put their faith in Jesus. However, the reconstruction of the temple made it possible for the Children of Israel to implement the commands that God had set for them regarding worship, the priesthood, the sacrifices, and the celebration of the Passover.

Sadly, the second Temple of Jerusalem, rebuilt during the reign of King Darius, met the same fate as the first. It was destroyed by the Roman Empire in approximately the year 70 A.D. It had stood longer than the temple that had been built by King Solomon. It was this temple that stood during the time of Jesus. Jesus rebuilt God’s temple through a new covenant and inaugurated a new form of worship that did not offer God the burnt offerings of rams and bullocks, but offers his own body and blood as a sacrifice for the sins of humanity.

Jesus has told us that those who hear the Word of God and act upon it are his mother, his brothers, and his sisters. This new family commits itself to living the Word of God and keeping the commandments that Jesus gave us to love one another as he has loved us. As we receive his body and blood today, we recommit ourselves to the Gospel way of life.