1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:05,560 Welcome to Westminster Abbey's Lent and Easter reflections. 2 00:00:05,560 --> 00:00:07,320 On the third Sunday of Lent, 3 00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:12,560 we begin with the book of John, chapter two, verses thirteen to twenty-two. 4 00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:18,200 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 5 00:00:18,200 --> 00:00:22,280 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, 6 00:00:22,280 --> 00:00:25,280 and the money-changers seated at their tables. 7 00:00:25,680 --> 00:00:29,720 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, 8 00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:32,200 both the sheep and the cattle. 9 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:37,200 He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. 10 00:00:37,200 --> 00:00:39,800 He told those who were selling the doves, 11 00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:44,720 ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ 12 00:00:45,320 --> 00:00:48,200 His disciples remembered that it was written, 13 00:00:48,200 --> 00:00:51,200 ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ 14 00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:53,840 The Jews then said to him, 15 00:00:53,840 --> 00:00:56,720 ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ 16 00:00:56,720 --> 00:01:02,920 Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ 17 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:04,960 The Jews then said, 18 00:01:04,960 --> 00:01:11,320 ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ 19 00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:15,080 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 20 00:01:15,480 --> 00:01:21,200 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; 21 00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:25,920 and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. 22 00:01:26,760 --> 00:01:30,040 Holy places inspire many emotions. 23 00:01:30,040 --> 00:01:33,440 Fervour, delight, admiration, ecstasy. 24 00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:37,560 All these are features of how people respond to sacred space. 25 00:01:37,960 --> 00:01:42,680 But in his poem, Church Going, Philip Larkin rather shifts our focus, 26 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:46,840 referring to a ‘serious house on serious earth.’ 27 00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:51,280 Christian worship and Christian discipleship are serious matters, 28 00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:55,320 not to be commercialised, or viewed as entertainment, leisure, 29 00:01:55,320 --> 00:01:59,200 or just one possible choice in a competing marketplace. 30 00:02:00,160 --> 00:02:03,080 Worship is fundamental to our being human, 31 00:02:03,080 --> 00:02:08,240 and it is through our worship that Christians become who they are – the Body of Christ, 32 00:02:08,240 --> 00:02:11,480 in new relationship with God and one another. 33 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:16,520 We go beyond ourselves, so that we can know ourselves in Christ. 34 00:02:17,120 --> 00:02:22,320 ‘Look Father, look on his anointed face, and only look on us as found in him’, 35 00:02:22,320 --> 00:02:24,760 as one old verse puts it. 36 00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:31,680 The Temple of Christ’s Body, which will be crucified, torn down, and will rise, 37 00:02:31,680 --> 00:02:35,120 speaks to us about human dignity and human destiny. 38 00:02:35,600 --> 00:02:38,480 We are called into that Temple, the Church, 39 00:02:38,480 --> 00:02:42,040 in which we can learn again how to love and how to forgive, 40 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:44,000 as we have been forgiven. 41 00:02:44,640 --> 00:02:48,840 Not a market place, but a mending-place. 42 00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:52,760 O Lord Jesu Christ, Son of the living God, 43 00:02:52,760 --> 00:02:57,320 who didst devote thy life and precious death to our most plenteous redemption: 44 00:02:57,840 --> 00:03:01,920 grant that what thou hast wrought for us, may also be wrought in us. 45 00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:07,400 That growing into thy likeness, we may serve and share thy redeeming work. 46 00:03:07,400 --> 00:03:14,280 Who livest and reignest in the glory of the eternal Trinity, now and forever. Amen.