Good morning good people, May the Lord give you peace and blessings in the Holy Spirit.
It is 19th November 2021.
We reflect on 1 Maccabees 4:36-37, 52-59 and the Gospel of Luke 19:45-48.
Friedrich Nietzsche says that gratitude and cleanliness make someone closer to one’s highest potential. We all have a moral and noble responsibility to clean the space before we leave the place that applies to everything we are in contact with.
Cleanliness is next to godliness. To live an integrally healthy and balanced life, internal cleansing is essential and without which no person has a glimpse of the divine. It is the mindset, positive energy, inherited habit and hallmark of purity, perfection, clarity that shapes our project of life. cleanliness is intermingled with faith and faithfulness to God and to one another.
For the Israel people, the temple was their pride, the pinnacle, the powerhouse, the centre, and the glory of their lives. It happened after the Maccabees, not so many committed and loyal priests served the temple, but they gave superior importance to their personal accumulation of wealth and engaged in activities of enriching themselves neglecting the cleanliness of the temple. They celebrated this cleansing as a re-consecration of God’s temple, the feast of Hannukah.
With or without our collaboration, a certain amount of desecration is done to our temples within us too. When people give importance to buildings and outward decorations and beauty, there is a high possibility they would neglect the inside grandeur and greatness. Neglecting the Body of Christ is an abuse of freedom to worship. All our temples need periodic cleansing no matter what it takes.
Many scholars are of the opinion that Jesus would not have cleansed the temple with its economic and political iron walls that controlled every move of the believer. Yet He risked Himself to do it. ‘My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.” (Lk.19:45). Having wept looking at the city of Jerusalem, He entered the temple to clean those people who would one day be the cause for its destruction.
Let us not forget to clean our temples of the Holy Spirit that are invaded by disgusting elements.
Kindly keep me in your prayers as I celebrate my 57th birthday today. All that I am today because of God and your constant support, love, and encouragement. May the Lord bless you all.