Monday in the Fifth Week of Lent, April 4, 2022

John 8:12-20

Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” So the Pharisees said to him, “You testify on your own behalf, so your testimony cannot be verified.” Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I do testify on my own behalf, my testimony can be verified, because I know where I came from and where I am going. But you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge by appearances, but I do not judge anyone. And even if I should judge, my judgment is valid, because I am not alone, but it is I and the Father who sent me. Even in your law it is written that the testimony of two men can be verified. I testify on my behalf and so does the Father who sent me.” So they said to him, “Where is your father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” He spoke these words while teaching in the treasury in the temple area. But no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.

“I am the light of the world.”  The Lord Jesus here speaks of himself, he tells the people who he is.  But he does not do this for his own sake: “Amen, amen, I say unto you, the Son cannot do any thing of himself, but what he sees the Father doing: for what things soever he does, these the Son also does in like manner” (John 5, 19).  That is, the Father reveals Jesus as his divine Son through the works he gives him to do and the words he gives him to say.  “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  Jesus is the light.  There are no other lights for the people of the world, who have lived in the darkness of sin and ignorance: “The people that walked in darkness, have seen a great light: to them that dwelt in the region of the shadow of death, light is risen” (Isaiah 9, 2).  The Father gives his Son to say that those who follow him will have “the light of life”.  This “light of life” is sanctifying grace, which forgives sin and puts the soul in a state of friendship with God.  It is obtained only through the Son of God.

The Pharisees contest the Lord’s claim: “You testify on your own behalf, so your testimony cannot be verified.”  They refuse to admit the evidence of the signs the Lord has performed, which they should have seen as unimpeachable credentials from heaven. “Even if I do testify on my own behalf, my testimony can be verified, because I know where I came from and where I am going.”  This does not sound like much of an answer, but the Lord is saying, “Consider the works I do and if you will not believe that I am the light of the world, at least believe that I know where I come from and where I am going.”  He adds, “But you do not know where I come from or where I am going”, as if to say, You should admit at least that I have greater knowledge than you, so that you should believe what I say.

“You judge by appearances, but I do not judge anyone.”  The Greek word translated here as “appearances” actually means “the body” or “the flesh”:  “You judge according to the flesh.”  The Lord contrasts that with, “I do not judge anyone.”  That is, You presume to be able to judge, but judgment belongs only to the Father and those to whom he gives it.  The Lord Jesus is saying that the Jewish leaders are judging him only by looking at his Body, his Flesh, without taking into account the miracles he has performed.  How can mere flesh accomplish such things?  But they cannot judge rightly because the Father has not given this to them, as they are unworthy.  They cannot judge him, then, but they can accept him and believe in him.  “And even if I should judge, my judgment is valid, because I am not alone, but it is I and the Father who sent me.”  They can know that the Father is with him because of the works he does, and so everything he says about himself must be true.  

“Even in your law it is written that the testimony of two men can be verified. I testify on my behalf and so does the Father who sent me.”  The Lord says, “in your law”: the scribes and Pharisees very much saw the Mosaic Law as their personal possession that they alone could understand and interpret.  The Lord is using irony here, for the Law belongs to all the Jews.  Jesus appeals to the Law they purport to understand and follow so well, saying that it supports his claim.

“Where is your father?”  The Lord Jesus has spoken of God the Father as “Father”, which was not the custom of the time.  The doctrines of the kingdom of God and of God as Father are found in the Old Testament only in figures and fragments.  It is Jesus who reveals them.  He reveals God as his Father inasmuch as he is begotten by him from all eternity; and God as the Father of those who share in Christ’s Sonship through grace and are therefore the Father’s children by adoption.  The Pharisees are speaking in a sneering way, knowing that Joseph, the Lord’s putative father, was a humble carpenter living in a village.  “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”  This brings to mind St. Philip’s request at the Last Supper: “Lord, show us the Father.”  To which Jesus replied, “He that sees me sees the Father also” (John 14, 9).  The Pharisees do not believe that he is the Son of the Father because they do not want to believe, despite all the evidence.

“He spoke these words while teaching in the treasury in the temple area. But no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.”  St. John bolsters the authenticity of his own testimony with his precise details of where and when events occurred.  Precision inspires faith. 

Passages like these are not easy to follow.  But working through them pays off because the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, is revealing mysteries to us.  He is translating the language of heaven into human language.  And at the same time, he provides us the grace we need in order to know and to believe.