FrNikola

5th Week of Lent, Friday

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Yesterday‘s Gospel ended with the Jews taking up stones because Jesus claimed he was God. Today’s Gospel takes up John’s account a few chapters later, after Jesus heals the man born blind (John 9) and preaches the Good Shepherd discourse (John 10:1–22). The Jews have once again taken up stones and he challenges them about it. They believe his claim to be God is blasphemy, and he points them back to the many signs he has already performed that show they should believe in him. For them Jesus is either crazy, a blasphemer, or both. For them it’s unthinkable that God could be standing before him, which is why to rationalize how he could be performing these signs they claim he has a demon (John 7:20, 8:48-49, 10:20-21): possession would make him crazy and able to have powers. Even that explanation does not hold weight for everyone in the crowd, because some of his signs are to great for them to conceive anyone other than God doing them (see John 10:21).

As John’s account tells us, Jesus has to escape and hide now to avoid arrest. John no longer simply says his hour had not yet come. The “hour” in John’s Gospel refers to Jesus’ Passion and death, and it is close. Despite the charged atmosphere and hostility the Word sown has begun to bear fruit. People come to Our Lord across the Jordan and continue to follow and believe in him because of the signs he has performed. They know those signs could only be explained by Our Lord being sent by God. It’s poignant that the story comes full circle, back to where John had been baptizing; John had pointed to Our Lord and testified to him being the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the greatest power of all. Now the Lamb is gathering his disciples around himself not long before before he does take away the sins of the world on the Cross.

Our Lord still works signs, but to those who have faith. When he appears after the Resurrection, he only appears to those who had faith in him. Make this last week of Lent a moment of prayer where you contemplate the things Our Lord has worked in your life. He’s always willing to reveal something new.

Readings: Jeremiah 20:10–13; Psalm 18:2–7; John 10:31–42.

5th Week of Lent, Thursday

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Today’s Gospel concludes the long discourse we’ve read in the liturgy over the last week regarding the arguments between Jesus and the Jews who didn’t believe in him (John 8). Yesterday he spoke with some who had believed in him, but, scratching beneath the surface, their faith was shaped more by his telling off the incredulous Jews than by deep convictions. Even yesterday Our Lord warned those in the crowd who believed in him that they were slaves to sin in need of liberation in order to really treat God as their Father again. The response was hostility.

Now Our Lord, having just received another barrage of name-calling due to his teachings (John 8:47–49), and after a long attempt to tell them the truth, a truth that could only be accepted in faith, he lays it on the line: he claims to have power over life and death, and to have seen Abraham and pleased him. The crowds respond that he is possessed (in other words, insane) to think that he is greater than Abraham and greater than the prophets, yet he is. It all comes down to the words for which they sought to stone him: “before Abraham came to be, I AM.” “I AM” was how the Lord told Moses to identify him when he went to free Abraham’s descendants in Egypt (Exodus 3:13–15), and now Jesus was identifying not only his Father as God, but himself. If he is God he’d have power over death, and be able to know Abraham personally. For his listeners that is the last straw.

A deeper relationship with Christ requires not only embracing his humanity, through which he makes himself accessible to us, but his divinity as well. Through faith in him we are led to a deeper trust in him and love for him, and God goes from being some all-powerful being overshadowing us, aloof and distant, to someone who loves us and is close to us. In a week and a day we’ll see the depths of his love on the Cross.

Readings: Genesis 17:3–9; Psalm 105:4–9; John 8:51–59.

5th Week of Lent, Wednesday

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Yesterday Our Lord addressed the Jews who didn’t believe in him or in the Father. Today he addresses those who did believe in him, and he reminds us that faith alone is not enough; there has to be a change of heart, a conversion. To understand what Our Lord is saying today about the Father and the “father” of the Jews he is addressing we have to consider a moment in the account of the Fall of Adam and Eve. The Lord, addressing the serpent who contribute to the Fall, says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; They will strike at your head, while you strike at their heel” (Genesis 3:15, NABRE).

The Jews are thinking of being blood descendants of Abraham. Our Lord is speaking of whose side they’ve chosen by their behavior. Our Lord is the “offspring” who strikes at the head of the serpent’s offspring, a fatal blow. Our Lord is offering them a way to return to the right side: to return to the family of God by turning away from sin. As he describes in today’s Gospel, those who sin enslave themselves. The fact that they seek Our Lord’s death shows that they are not on the side of Our Lord, or of Abraham, or of the Father, because they are trying to kill the truth that could set them free. Our Lord is trying to convince them to change back to the winning side; it they don’t, they may slow down God’s designs, but ultimately they’ll fail.

The young men in today’s First Reading were clear regarding which side they were on, regardless of the consequences. In a world that often entices us to sacrifice our Christian principles, let’s show the same boldness as the young men by believing in Christ and the winning side and giving witness to it, no matter how much the world seems to threaten us.

Readings: Daniel 3:14–20, 91–92, 95; Daniel 3:52–56; John 8:31–42.

5th Week of Lent, Tuesday

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In today’s Gospel the Jews who don’t understand what Our Lord is trying to teach him are like people who’ve become so accustomed to listening to a muffled voice that they don’t even realize it’s muffled anymore. Even now they have an intuition that Our Lord is trying to tell them something: they recognize he is speaking of some sort of departure that involves death, they recognize that he claims to be someone special, and they recognize that he claims to be sent by someone very important to knowing and understanding the importance of him and his mission.

Like the Israelites in today’s First Reading, their lack of faith has condemned them to wandering, lost, confused, and angry in a desert. The Israelites feared the Promised Land and therefore returned into the desert. The Lord provided for them and they complained about it. Just as the Lord sent them what they needed to survive in the desert, now he has sent his Son to lead them out of the desert. It is a lack of faith that strands them: that generation of Israelites died never entering the Promised Land due to their lack of faith and their sin. Our Lord is warning the Jews in today’s Gospel who don’t believe in him or the Father that they are lost, and they are not open to letting Jesus guide them out of the desert of their lack of faith.

Not everyone listening to Our Lord that day heard a muffled voice; John tells us that, “Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.” Faith is what enables us to hear and understand what Our Lord is trying to say. Ask him for a greater faith and let him lead you out of whatever spiritual desert in which you may be wandering.

Readings: Numbers 21:4–9; Psalm 102:2–3, 16–21; John 8:21–30.

5th Week of Lent, Monday

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In today’s First Reading the people of Israel believed the corrupt old judges’ testimony, and the Lord intervened through young Daniel to prove that it was false. In today’s Gospel the religious authorities claim that Jesus’ testimony, from a legal perspective, doesn’t have enough witnesses to corroborate it. Jesus responds, independent of legal technicalities, that his testimony is true. In the First Reading the abuse of authority was so severe that the Lord himself intervened to save poor Susanna from her false accusers. Now, similar to yesterday, the religious authorities are putting Our Lord on trial, and he is telling them that his testimony is not something to be accepted through rigorous legal process, but something to accept in faith as true.

At this point in John’s Gospel Our Lord has performed various signs to show that he was sent on his mission from God, but, as he told the religious authorities a few days ago, they don’t know God and so they can’t believe or trust Jesus. The elders in today’s First Reading knew the game well, but they forget that the true Judge was always on watch to make sure the game was played fairly. In today’s Gospel the religious authorities want to draw Our Lord into their game, and he doesn’t play. Susanna was spared by a miraculous intervention by the Lord; Our Lord went down into the depths of injustice, dying on the Cross, and in his Resurrection showed that the games of evil conceited men are in vain, no matter how powerful or skillful they think they are.

Thanks to Jesus we know Our Father and we know Jesus’ testimony is true. Let’s be witnesses to it as well.

Readings: Daniel 13:1–9, 15–17, 19–30, 33–62 ; Psalm 23:1–6; John 8:12–20 (Year C).