Saturday of Week 4 of Lent – Gospel

Commentary on John 7:40-52

Today we have a continuation of yesterday’s confusion about the identity of Jesus. There is a conflict between what people are seeing and hearing, and what they have been taught to believe. On the basis of his words and actions, Jesus looks like the Messiah, but as every Jewish child knows, the Messiah is not going to come from Galilee (where Nazareth is located). Rather, he is to come from Bethlehem and the family of David. This is a good example of Johannine irony. Of course, Jesus did come from Nazareth, but he was of the family of David and, as we know from Matthew and Luke, born in David’s town of Bethlehem.

Even the police are confused. When asked by the religious leaders why they have not arrested Jesus, they reply:

Never has anyone spoken like this!

They are scolded for their ignorance and told to never mind how impressively he speaks:

Surely you have not been deceived, too, have you? Has any one of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him?

And the crowds who surround Jesus and listen to him are written off as ignorant and cursed:

…this crowd, which does not know the law, they are accursed.

But one Pharisee, Nicodemus, who had earlier (John chap 3) spoken with Jesus in secret and had been won over, protests:

Our law does not judge people without first giving them a hearing to find out what they are doing, does it?

Nicodemus is swept aside by the leaders’ preconceived ideas:

Search and you will see that no prophet is to arise from Galilee.

We need to remember we are not reading this passage to condemn the Jewish religious leaders or the Pharisees, but to reflect on our own prejudices and short-sightedness. How do we see Jesus, the Gospel message, the whole Bible, the Church, our parish community and its leaders? How do we see our family, friends, neighbours, not to mention strangers and outsiders? Let him or her who is totally without prejudice or who has never passed judgement on another cast the first stone.

Let us pray for an open mind to accept in its totality the message of Jesus. And let us also be very open about the many and surprising ways in which Jesus can speak to us. If we are honest, there is something of the Pharisee in every one of us.

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Saturday of Week 4 of Lent – First Reading

Commentary on Jeremiah 11:18-20

Jeremiah, as a prophet of God, is the target of vicious conspiracies which want to wipe him out. In 622 BC, King Josiah of Judah undertook a religious reform (described in 2 Kings 23) after the Book of the Law was discovered, having lain hidden for years. It seems that Jeremiah took an active role in the reform. By championing the reform, which included the suppression of local shrines, Jeremiah incurred the hatred of his fellow citizens, the people of Anathoth.

It is then that he compares himself to a “gentle lamb led to the slaughter”. (A similar phrase will later be applied to Jesus as he is led to his execution.) For Jeremiah’s enemies are plotting to get rid of him:

Let us destroy the tree with its fruit;
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will no longer be remembered!

Jeremiah had no children so, in the eyes of his enemies, that would be the end of him forever.

But they were ironic words because, as in the case of so many martyrs in the cause of right, his name is all the more remembered after his enemies tried to blot him out of existence. And Jeremiah knows that too:

But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,
who try the heart and the mind,
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.

Ultimately God is Jeremiah’s only protection against his enemies. But God will see that truth and justice will prevail in the end. And, of course, this is true most of all of Jesus:

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone. (Ps 118:22)

That is what we reflect on and celebrate as we watch Jesus go through his Passion in the coming days.

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