Friday of Week 5 of Lent – Gospel

Commentary on John 10:31-42

Once again Jesus’ enemies want to stone him because they continue to accuse him of blasphemy:

…you, though only a human, are making yourself God.

It is clear they have no doubt about the meaning of his words. Jesus points to the Scriptures, which has God saying of some people, “You are gods”. Jesus is here referring to the people called ‘judges’ in Israel. Since they were judges of their people, taking on themselves something which belongs only to God, they were called “gods” (see Deut 1:17; Exod 21:6; Ps 82:6).

If people inspired by the word from God could be called ‘gods’, can Jesus whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world blaspheme because he says:

I am God’s Son?

And, if they will not accept a verbal claim, Jesus appeals to what he has been doing:

…even though you do not believe me, believe the works…

To anyone with an open mind, it is clear that God is working in Jesus:

…you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.

Again, they tried to seize him, but he escaped from their power. His time had not yet come, and that time would not be decided by them.

On the other hand, while Jesus was being attacked by the leaders of the Jews, many of the ordinary people continued to seek him out. Jesus had gone back across the Jordan (a safer place) to the spot where John the Baptist had baptised and given such strong testimony about Jesus. Many people came looking for him there.

The people could see, as the Pharisees could not, a clear distinction between Jesus and John:

John performed no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true. And many believed in him there.

There are many who reject Christ and his message today, but let us pray that we may have open minds to believe the many signs by which God reveals his love to us each day.

Read more

Friday of Week 5 of Lent – First Reading

Commentary on Jeremiah 20:10-13

Jeremiah the prophet, God’s spokesman, is attacked and denounced on all sides by his own people.

“Terror on every side!” is the mocking call of Jeremiah’s critics, satirising his constantly gloomy predictions. “Let us denounce him!”—in the way that he constantly denounces the behaviour of others.

Even his friends abandon him.

All my close friends
are watching for me to stumble.

They are waiting for him to make some fatal mistake:

Perhaps he can be enticed,
and we can prevail against him
and take our revenge on him.

Jesus was treated in exactly the same way by Pharisees and scribes constantly trying to catch him out in violation of the Law. They ‘plant’ a disabled man in a synagogue on a Sabbath day to see if he will heal him. They ask him if it is right or not to give taxes to Caesar—where either a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer would be equally incriminating.

But Jeremiah has confidence in his God and his attackers will not prevail:

But the Lord is with me…my persecutors will stumble,
and they will not prevail.

For his God is a God of justice and truth, a God who is on the side of the needy:

Sing to the Lord;
praise the Lord!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
from the hands of evildoers.

The needy one, ebion, or the poor, anaw, is used in a religious sense: ill-treated by people, but confident in God, looking to Yahweh for support. By Jeremiah’s time, the term ‘poor’ and ‘needy’ had become virtually synonymous with ‘righteous’, someone whose total trust and dependence is on God.

Ultimately, Jeremiah knows, truth and justice will prevail no matter what some people try to do. It is a belief that we need to remember ourselves. It is a belief we see realised in Jesus. They could kill his body, but not his Spirit.

Read more