A good Lenten exercise is to take one of the Commandments and see how you live it. For example: keeping holy the sabbath. There are plenty of good resources on this topic, including Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter Dies Domini. Consider as well that the sabbath is not to be observed simply because God said, “No work.” What makes it holy is that it is part of the fabric of creation; it was the “day” God rested after the work of creation. To do the same, then, is to draw closer to God, which is holiness itself. In this sense, how can you “keep holy the sabbath day”?

In the territory of Lent, many of us take on practices aimed at improving our character. We exercise greater generosity and pray more. We reflect daily on scripture or contemplate our own moral landscape. We take up reading meant to edify or clarify. We clear a place for the Holy Spirit to plant some seeds.

When the Passover Feast, celebrated each spring by the Jews, was about to take place, Jesus traveled up to Jerusalem. He found the Temple teeming with people selling cattle and sheep and doves. The loan sharks were also there in full strength.

I can say with some level of certainty that most of us keep more laws than we break. There are international, federal, state, and local laws. There are church laws, natural law, the laws of science, of averages, and, if I keep on listing them, a good example of the law of diminishing return. Today we hear the familiar Ten Commandments. We also hear the story of Jesus so angry at the sellers and money changers in the temple that he physically confronts them.

O God, you bestow “mercy down to the thousandth generation” for those who love you and keep your commandments. See the sign of our love and faith in our prayers to you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

"What sign can you show us for doing this?” Signs abound in the lectionary readings for this Sunday, no more so than in a typically multilayered passage from the Gospel of John. Throughout John’s gospel Jesus had systematically reshaped and reinterpreted the signs of Israelite faith, and in the gospel today he was remaking another sign: the Temple. What the people, not even his disciples who were there, didn’t understand at the time was that the Resurrection is the real sign of who Jesus is. Though “many began to believe in his name when they saw the signs he was doing,” Jesus “knew them all.” He didn’t want a faith only of signs. He was calling people to faith in him, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,” not merely in his reputation or his deeds.

The One who fashioned together their hearts is the One who knows all their works. —Psalm 33:15