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Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
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April 8, 2022“Repent and Believe in the Gospel”
Today’s gospel passage marks the end of chapter 10 of John’s gospel account and the end of Jesus’ arguments with the Pharisees that have been going on since chapter 5. It also marks the second time the Pharisees have tried to stone Jesus, the first time occurring at the end of chapter 8 when Jesus told them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” In the verse immediately before today’s passage, Jesus tells the Pharisees, “The Father and I are one.”
Only the gospel of John, written late in the first Century, contains these “high Christology” statements of Jesus where he very overtly and plainly claims divinity with the Father. Combined with the great Johannine Prologue at the beginning of the gospel, as well as some other passages in John, they make the most powerful claim to the divinity of Christ in all the New Testament. Only Colossians 1:15-20 equals it. It is something of a question what our understanding of Jesus would have been without the Gospel of John and the other Johannine texts.
Jesus, in his final statement to the Pharisees heard today, will complete his identification with the Father by saying, “The Father is in me and I am in the Father.” He urges the unbelieving Pharisees to at least believe the mighty works he does, that they are from the Father. He also tells us memorably that scripture cannot be set aside, it cannot be ignored. We think of all the prophesies of the Bible that spoke of Jesus and what he would endure for God’s people, two of which we are in the first reading today from Jeremiah and Psalm 18 that follows.
Palm Sunday and Holy Week are almost upon us. As we as the Church continue to reflect on the events that led up to the Lord’s death and his resurrection and our salvation, let us be grateful for all that God the Father and the Son have worked out of love for sinful humanity. If we, unlike the Pharisees, believe in him and in who he said he was, what will that lead us to? Will we finally become willing to follow him more completely? To surrender our will to the Father’s as Jesus did so completely? Will we trust him to show us the way and cease insisting on our own way and our own will that have brought us nothing but sorrow and regret. Jesus began his ministry with the words, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!” That is no less imminent and urgent now, than when he first spoke those words. This Easter, as we welcome the risen Savior, let us resolve to love one another as he loved us. To forgive one another. To be kind and gentle to all we encounter, putting away resentment and anger, and always practicing patience and tolerance. Let us begin today, “For now is the favorable time, now is the day of salvation.”
