In 2025, instead of the 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, this coming Sunday we celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. 

In vv. 18–20 we see the first example of the Johannine narrative technique of misunderstanding. The Jews respond to Jesus’ words about the destruction and raising of the Temple with a very pragmatic protest. Clearly their understanding is limited to the physical realm and made no approach to the deeper meaning of Jesus’ words. The verb Jesus uses to speak of the raising of the Temple (egeirō) points to a second, more symbolic level of meaning, however, because that verb is also used to speak of resurrection (John 2:22; 5:21; 12:1, 9, 17; 21:14).

This interchange of misunderstanding is a recurring technique in John’s Gospel: the story of Nicodemus (3:3–5), the encounter with the Samaritan Woman at the well (although with a much different result than Nicodemus), and at least four other times

The True Temple

Verse 21 (“But he was speaking about the temple of his body”) makes the deeper level of meaning of Jesus’ words explicit. The Evangelist tells the reader that Jesus speaks of “the temple of his body.” Since for Judaism the Temple is the locus of God’s presence on earth, v. 21 suggests that Jesus’ body is now the locus of God’s presence. This verse echoes and recalls John 1:51 where the Son of Man replaces Jacob’s ladder as the locus of God’s interaction with the world.

John’s commentary becomes an interpretation of the dialogue between Jesus and the Jews, so that the reader can discern the full meaning of Jesus’ words as well as the nature of the misunderstanding. The Fourth Evangelist frequently interjects his own voice into the narrative of the Fourth Gospel to provide the reader with insight and information the characters in the stories do not have. Verse 21 enables the reader to see the sign the “Jews” miss: Jesus has the authority to challenge the temple system because he is the locus of God’s presence on earth.

When paired with Numbers 47, as it is on the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, we are asked to remember that the Prophet Ezekiel (11:23) described the glory of God leaving the Temple and the city, moving to the East. John the Evangelist is at the beginning of teaching us that the glory of God has returned in the person of Jesus of Nazareth and has returned to the city and the Temple.

In the light of the Resurrection. 

Verse 22 (“Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.”) like v. 17, jumps forward in time as the disciples are arriving at a deeper understanding of the meaning of the events in the Temple. Unlike v. 17, we are given a reference: after Jesus’ resurrection. It recounts what the disciples “remembered.” In John 14:26, Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit “will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” In John, remembrance is active reflection on the past in the light of the resurrection with the aid of the Spirit. Such reflection leads to faith and deepened understanding (see 12:16). In 2:22, remembering the past with the aid of the Spirit reveals the truth of Scripture and Jesus’ word in new ways. The combination of Scripture and Jesus’ word in v. 22 shows that the early church began to grant Jesus’ word the same authority it had already granted Scripture. [O’Day, 544]

Verse 22 makes explicit the post-resurrection perspective from which the Gospel was written. Each of the Gospels is written from a post-resurrection perspective, but in John that perspective is intentionally integrated into the Gospel narrative. The distance between the disciples of Jesus in the Gospel stories and the disciples who read the Gospel stories is bridged by v. 22, because this verse points to a time beyond the end of the Fourth Gospel narrative, to a story that gets underway as the Fourth Gospel story draws to a close. Verse 22 points to the interpretive activity of believers as they remember and claim the stories and sayings of Jesus as their own.