The Tale of Four Temples
The lectionary readings assigned for the third Sunday in Lent, year B, in the Book of Common Prayer (2019) pairs Exodus 20:1-21 and John 2:13-22. The Exodus reading relates the giving of the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel from Mount Sinai, while John 2 tells us of Jesus' cleansing of the temple. While it may appear that these passages have little to do with one another, a thread that ties them together is that of temple. Explicitly and implicitly, four temples are present in these readings: the temple in Jerusalem, the temple of Jesus' body, the temple of Mount Sinai, and the temple of Mount Moriah.