Word to the Wise
Saturday, March 24, 2007 - Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
[Jeremiah 11:18-20 and John 7:40-53]Never before has anyone spoken like this man!
If ever there was an understatement, the guards have made it! They were sent to arrest Jesus and found him too fascinating to touch! Needless to say, the Pharisees are exasperated. Not only do the guards fail to do their "duty" but Nicodemus dares to challenge them on the legality of all their plotting. Of course they are convinced that since Jesus is from Galilee he couldn't possibly be a prophet! It's almost comical if it weren't lethal in intent. The early Christian community found in Jeremiah a figure of Jesus' life in the lines from today's first scripture: "Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter, had not realized that they were hatching plots against me: 'Let us cut him off from the land of the living, so that his name will be spoken no more.'" If we "fast forward" to our own time, we might find that the two parties represented in this gospel passage are still with us. There are those who want to get rid of Jesus and those who find him fascinating. What is puzzling to me is indifference but there's a lot of that too. The indifference may be due to the deadening effect our secular consumer society creates. But if we're like those guards and we think no one has ever spoken like Jesus, maybe it's time we started telling others. AMEN