Third Sunday of Lent Year B Gospel

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John.

As it was near the time of the Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the moneychangers sitting at their counters there.  Making a whip out of cords, Jesus drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers, scattering their coins. Then he turned on the pigeon-sellers: “Take all this out of here and stop turning God’s house into a market!”  The disciples remembered the words of Scripture: “Zeal for Your house consumes me.”  The Temple authorities intervened and said, “What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?”  Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  They retorted, “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you are going to raise it up in three days?”  But the temple he was speaking of was his body.  It was only after Jesus had been raised from the dead that the disciples remembered this statement, and believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

While Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, many believed in his name, for they could see the signs he was performing.  But Jesus knew all people, and did not trust himself to them.  Jesus never needed evidence about people’s motives; he was well aware of what was in each one’s heart.

The Good News as spoken through John.