This Sunday is the mid-point of Lent, under normal circumstances the message would be: only a few weeks more penance to endure before celebrating Easter, the time of feasting, not fasting, has at last come. This year it has been difficult to focus on Lent as the penitential season in the Church`s year because we have been locked into a kind of penitential time over the whole of the past year What does this mean; can we see it as a sign from God, and what would the sign be telling us?
In the gospel for this Sunday, Jesus drives the money changers out of the temple, and is asked what sign could he give to justify what he had done. Jesus` response is “Destroy this sanctuary and in three days I will build it up”. Eventually people knew Jesus was referring to his death and resurrection. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the centre point of our religion; it is the basis of a new covenant God made with us. God became one of us and died for us. We have to learn to die for one another. In our very divided world, could the pandemic be telling us this? Could it be a sign that this is how God wants us to live? Could we take it as a sign that we don`t need God, with modern medicine we are in control?