Word to the Wise
Friday, March 15, 2024 - 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 is 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." "You know me and also know where I am from. Yet I did not come on my own, but the one who sent me, whom you do not know, is true. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me."
The Book of Wisdom is dated roughly 50 years before Jesus' birth and was probably written by a Jewish author in Alexandria, Egypt, because it was written in Greek and aimed for the edification of a Jewish community. Because it was originally written in Greek, Luther and other Reformation leaders excluded it and several other "books" from their biblical canon because they believed only those books of the Bible written originally in Hebrew were inspired. The books written originally in Greek were called "apocryphal" and considered worthy but not inspired.
However, the early Christian community found the words in the Book of Wisdom in today's passage to be a foreshadowing of Jesus' life and death. Indeed they seem eerily predictive of the drama we are seeing in the Gospel According to John, from which the gospel scriptures are being taken as we approach Holy Week. The "just one" suffers the fate of all great prophetic figures, but Jesus is above them all. In the Gospel According to John, he is the personification of God's wisdom. The Jewish authorities thought they had Jesus "pegged" because he was just a carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee. As the passage says, they were "thinking not aright!" The majestic prologue to the Gospel According to John is worth reading at this time to remind us of where Jesus is from and who has sent him. AMEN