Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard from the Holy Scriptures about God who admonished the leaders of His people in exile, the exilarchs, the descendants of the kings of Israel and the High Priests, who did not restore the holy Temple of Jerusalem when they were clearly able to, because of their doubts and uncertainties. They were probably afraid of the Lord and His punishment, which they certainly could still feel after those many years in exile.

After all, the people of God had not been faithful in many occasions, and the kings led their people to sin by trying to satisfy their own selfish desires and wants, neglecting the sacred duty which God had entrusted them with, the duty and responsibility to lead and guide the people to live faithfully in accordance with God’s will and following the Law in accordance with the teachings and words of the prophets.

But indeed, they have been brought low by the Lord, who reminded them of their humanity and of their vulnerabilities. They boasted of their might and strength, their gold and wealth, their possessions and their wicked life, but God brought them down, and left them for their enemies to possess them, and as a sign of His wrath, He showed it by the destruction of the first Temple of Jerusalem, the departure of the Lord from among His people.

But God showed mercy on His people after their repentance, and He rebuilt the Temple that was to be His dwelling among His people. He brought them all back to the land they dwelled in, and God reunited His people once again to Himself. This is to show that Lord our God ultimately still loves us all despite all of our sins, as long as we are willing to atone for those sins and walk in the path of genuine and true repentance.

Linked to the Gospel today, where king Herod seemed to be in disbelief after thinking that Jesus Christ our Lord was St. John the Baptist risen from the dead, whom king Herod himself had killed, we should be able to see a clear link between God’s history with His people, the Babylonian exile and the salvation, destruction and rebuilding with how He finally and ultimately saved all of His beloved ones, all mankind.

In Jesus Christ, we saw how He rescued mankind by His sacrifice on the cross, the ultimate love which He showed all of us, that to save us, He laid down His own life for our sake, so that all who believed in Him may not die, but have eternal life in them. This He compared it on one occasion to the destruction of the Temple, which He would then rebuild in three days’ time.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law misunderstood Him, thinking that He referred to the Temple of Jerusalem, the third Temple built by king Herod. It was indeed a grand edifice, rivalling if not surpassing the first Temple built by Solomon in greatness and majesty, but Jesus was not referring to it when He said about the Temple, that is truly Himself, the Holy Presence of God dwelling among men, Emmanuel, God Who is with us.

By the destruction of the Temple, Jesus meant the sacrifice and the death He would endure for the sake of all of us, gathering all of our sins upon Himself, and by taking up those sins, He had made all of us to share in His death. Death is the consequence and punishment for sin, which all of us are to suffer for our disobedience. But then, as we have discussed earlier, God still loves us all, and just as He had brought His people back from exile and rebuilt the Temple, God also brought us back from the brink of destruction into a new life and a new hope.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in all these, can we all realise how much God loves all of us? Can we all truly put our trust and faith in the Lord who had given His all in order to help us? He never gave up on us, but He pulled us up and lifted up all of us into new hope. Shall we not be grateful at all these? Or are all of us ignorant and lacking in courtesy?

Let us all reflect on this, and know how much God is loving us everyday. Let us all therefore strive hard to live righteously and with justice, that we may be found worthy of Him, and receive the fullness of His loving promise to us, making our lives filled with love and grace of God once again. Let us dwell no longer in sin and darkness but in the light of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Amen.