Scripture Study for
Third Sunday of Lent
Exodus 20:1–17 [20:1–3, 7–8, 12–17] / John 6:68c / 1 Corinthians 1:22–25 / John 2:13–25
<< Back to LECTIONARY RESOURCES
Understanding the Word
By Br. John R. Barker, OFM
The Ten Commandments summarize God’s expectations of Israel, partner in the covenant. By delivering Israel from bondage and bringing them into this relationship, God is forming a people who will be a “holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), set apart and shaped by God to manifest God’s character to the other nations. The commandments are a template, as it were, of the minimum standards by which Israel should conduct itself as a people and as individuals in order to be a holy nation that “looks like” God. This is, in fact, why God has created Israel in the first place—to be a “kingdom of priests” (19:6) to mediate God’s holiness and righteousness to the rest of the world.
As it is today, it was common in the ancient world for “thought leaders” to attract followers. The tendency to follow the most eloquent speaker has led to divisions in the Corinthian church. Thus Paul contrasts human wisdom, thought to be manifest in the persuasive speakers, with divine wisdom, which is found in the cross of Christ. Of course, the world does not see any wisdom in the cross, an instrument of torture and death for criminals, and it is thus a stumbling block for accepting the full gospel. Paul will struggle to get his audience to understand that what God has done in Christ cannot be understood or evaluated according to the “wisdom” of the broken social order. Nor can it be modified or diluted to make it palatable to the larger society.
A theme in the Gospel of John is that in Christ, the glory of God is in the world: The “Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (1:14). The Greek reads “pitched his tent among us,” a reference to the ancient tabernacle, which was filled with the glory (the presence) of God (Exodus 40:35). The scene this week picks up this theme by portraying Jesus as the new temple who, though destroyed by humans, will be raised again by God. It is this glory manifest in Jesus that allows him to perform the various signs that draw people to him. At the same time, Jesus is fully aware that human hearts are fickle and that even the divine glory can be rejected by “human nature” in its present state.