Thursday in the Fifth Week of Lent, March 30, 2023

John 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.

The Gospel Reading for today’s Mass concludes the Lord’s teaching of the Jews in the Temple on the occasion of his visit there on the Feast of Booths.  He has been telling them of his divinity, his Sonship, his equality with the Father.  He has distanced himself, as the Messiah, from the political goals which they had expected him to fulfill.  He has invited them to become his disciples, but they reacted with rage in misunderstanding his speaking of their slavery to sin as slavery to the Romans.  

“Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.”  The Greek word translated here as “see” has the meaning of “to behold” and “to experience”.  The Lord is saying that death as the final end of all life ceases to exist for the one who believes in him.  It becomes instead the passage of the soul to eternal life in heaven.  The Jews seize on this statement without asking for clarification: “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.’ ”  The Lord corrected their idea that he had called them slaves of the Romans, but they did not lose their fury.  Now it flares into an accusation of being possessed.  Next, they demand to know who he is, but what they are doing is challenging him to do something they do not think he can do: to claim that he is greater than Abraham and the Prophets: “Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? Or the prophets, who died?  Who do you make yourself out to be?”  The Lord does not answer all at once, according to their demand, but prepares his answer by speaking of his relationship with the Father: “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing; but it is my Father who glorifies me.”  The Father glorifies the Son on earth through his miracles, and will glorify him again in his Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.  Speaking of his Father, the Lord says, “You do not know him, but I know him.”  The Greek text gives two different words for the verb “to know”.  Accordingly, the Lord is saying that they do not “know” the Father in the way we usually mean in English; but when Jesus says that he “knows” the the Father  this means that he understands and cherishes him.  “And if I should say that I do not know him, I would be like you a liar.”  He says that they are liars because they say they know the Father though they do not.  That they do not know the Father is shown by their rejection of the works done by the Son which could  have been accomplished only if the Father were pleased for them to be done.  The rejection of the works is the rejection of the Father.  “But I do know him and I keep his word.”  That is, I obey his will.

“Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.”  We can almost hear the Lord sighing.  Abraham, centuries before, looked forward to the day when God would deliver his people, and now he has come and his descendants, who see him, hate him.  “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?” Their derision drips from their words.  They also think they have the Lord backed into a corner.  The Lord answers in a way they could not have anticipated: “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.”  It would seem that the dialogue had been conducted in Hebrew because the use of the Greek verb to-be here would not have resulted in the Jews rushing about looking for stones to kill Jim with.  The use of the Hebrew name that God gives himself, which we translate into English as “I am”, was strictly forbidden because of its holiness.  The high priest alone could speak the name, and only once a year in the holy of Holies in the Temple.  

The Lord Jesus had announced his divinity in the Temple, and had proven it, but the people madly seek his Death.  Let us oppose the hatred of God so evident in our society and culture today with our good deeds and our prayers for the conversion of all who oppose him.