Word to the Wise
Friday, April 8, 2011 - 4th Week of Lent - Fri
[Wis 2:1a, 12-22 and John 7:1-2, 10, 25-30]The wicked said among themselves, thinking not aright: "let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us; he sets himself against our doings, reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations of our training......He calls blest the destiny of the just and boasts that God is his Father....Let us condemn him to a shameful death; for according to his own words, God will take care of him...."
The lines I have quoted from the first scripture for today from the Book of Wisdom are eerie in their description of the persecution of the "just one." It is no wonder that the Christian community turned to them in a search for a way to understand what happened to Jesus. We are almost given a glimpse into the minds and motivations of Jesus' opponents in the gospel. The Gospel of John builds the tension of the plotting today, showing that the religious authorities would have like to have arrested Jesus after he healed the crippled beggar, but "no one laid a hand upon him, because his hour had not yet come." What comes through clearly is that Jesus was having an impact! This impact occurs on two different levels.
The first level is the legal/cultural level. To those who cannot accept him as Messiah, he appears as a troublemaker who violates the Sabbath and disturbs the faith of the people. The second level is the level of truth. Jesus IS the truth and that truth is about God so loving the world that he sent His only-begotten Son...(John 3:16). It is this latter truth that would eventually lead to separation between Christian and Jew - a separation that was going on during the time the Gospel of John was being put into writing. The trauma of that separation finds its way into the text in the form of the arguments between Jesus and the "Jews."
In our own time, the identity of Jesus remains a "core" issue. If he IS the Messiah, why are there so many who refuse to accept him? If he is NOT, why do so many believe in him? It is clear that this belief will create tension between believer and non-believer as the history of faith demonstrates over and over again. It makes little difference whether the non-believer is of another religious faith, or agnostic, or atheistic, or simply indifferent. Jesus remains controversial. For those of us who do accept him as Messiah, this season of Lent brings us face to face with that controversy and its lethal and miraculous consequences - the Cross and the Empty Tomb! Can we put aside the anticipation of ending our 40 days of "giving up _____for Lent" and pay attention to the person who is at the center of it all? AMEN
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