If you needed any reminder that next week is Holy Week all that you had to do was read the Gospel from that past few days. The imminent death of Jesus is mentioned in almost every Gospel.
The message appears to be that a very vocal segment of the local population appears to be very upset with the language of Jesus’s teachings.
Today the crowd responds by saying, “Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?
Or the prophets, who died?
Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Yesterday it was, “They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham
and have never been enslaved to anyone.
How can you say, ‘You will become free’?
So they said to him, “We were not born of fornication.
We have one Father, God.”
The interesting thing is that as you look back to this growing sentiment, it started with some of the more prominent miracles.
The crowds began to get angry with Jesus’ teachings back when He called himself the Son of God. The reading from this past Sunday was a prime example. When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the Pharisees decide that they had to have Jesus put to death.
In Matt 26: 3-6 we hear, “When Jesus finished all these words, he said to his disciples, “You know that in two days’ time it will be Passover, and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.” Then the chief priests and the elders of the people assembled in the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and they consulted together to arrest Jesus by treachery and put him to death. But they said, “Not during the festival, that there may not be a riot among the people.”
Now, lets us be clear that Jesus was not blameless in this animosity. In all three of the gnostic gospels is reported a story where Jesus told the Pharisees that “the kingdom of God would be taken from them”.
My guess is that if you were itching for a fight with the Pharisees, this would be the right way. But let us look at what He said.
Yesterday, He said that, “”If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples,
and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Seemingly innocent except for the fact that He suggested that they were not free. ”They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.” Do you get the feeling that they had missed the point?
Today He says that, “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.”
You have to love their response, “ “Now we are sure that you are possessed. Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Or the prophets, who died? Who do you make yourself out to be?”
What a great question. In Philippians 2:6-8 it says, “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”
The fact is that this is a difficult time in scripture. You have the glory of God existing in the reality of Humanity. And the two do not appear to coexist in harmony. The fact is that the word and the Love of God can set us free …. We just don’t want to hear that we are enslaved by sin.
The fact is that it is only through the word and the love of God are we called to a new life … we just don’t like to be hear that without of Lord we are powerless.
In the past few days we have heard that Jesus has escaped being hurled from the top of a cliff, He has been spared being stoned but we have also heard that through all of this many came to believe in Him.
This is the decision that will come up again and again between today and Good Friday. Do we turn to look for a stone or to was come to believe and follow?
If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.
JN 8:51-59
Jesus said to the Jews:
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever keeps my word will never see death.”
So the Jews said to him,
“Now we are sure that you are possessed.
Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say,
‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?
Or the prophets, who died?
Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing;
but it is my Father who glorifies me,
of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’
You do not know him, but I know him.
And if I should say that I do not know him,
I would be like you a liar.
But I do know him and I keep his word.
Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day;
he saw it and was glad.”
So the Jews said to him,
“You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM.”
So they picked up stones to throw at him;
but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.
March 30, 2023
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