Thursday in the Fourth Week of Lent, March 24, 2023

John 5, 31-47

Jesus said to the Jews: “If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true. But there is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that the testimony he gives on my behalf is true. You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept human testimony, but I say this so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and for a while you were content to rejoice in his light. But I have testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf. But you have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word remaining in you, because you do not believe in the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf. But you do not want to come to me to have life.  I do not accept human praise; moreover, I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I came in the name of my Father, but you do not accept me; yet if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father: the one who will accuse you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope.  For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true. But there is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that the testimony he gives on my behalf is true.”  In the past few Gospel Readings for Mass the Lord has used the occasion of his healing a man on the Sabbath, as recorded by St. John, to speak of his authority and his equality with the Father.  Now he speaks to the Jewish leaders of the proof of his claims.  To begin with he admits that if he alone made the claims he was making, should not consider them true, for according to the Law, truth was established by the testimony of two witnesses: “In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand” (Deuteronomy 19, 15).  

“You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept human testimony, but I say this so that you may be saved.”  The Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent their emissaries to John the Baptist after his following grew so large as to alarm them.  The purpose of the emissaries was to find out who he was, whether Elijah, the Messiah, or a simple preacher — perhaps a Pharisee.  Instead, John referred to the one who would come after him.  John does not call him the Messiah but describes him in those terms.  Jesus now claims that he is the one to whom John referred, a fact which may not have been known by the Jewish leaders, for John did not announce this to them when he recognized the Lord.  But though the Lord makes this clear to them, he also does not attach any great significance to it.  John prepared the people for his coming, and he was instrumental in the gaining of the Lord’s earliest disciples, but he did not testify to his divinity.  This the Lord now proceeds to prove, moving from human to divine testimony: “I have testimony greater than John’s.”  

The Lord’s first witness is the works he performs: “The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”  Works such as the healing of the lame man, which he has just accomplished.  He performed his miracles in the open where everyone could see them.  These miracles were affective immediately and totally.  He claims the Father as his second witness: “Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf.”  This witness comes in the form of the prophesies which Jesus fulfilled and his vocal commendation, such as that delivered st the time of his Baptism: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3, 17).  The Lord, however, concedes that the Jewish leaders have not heard the Father’s voice at any time: “But you have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word remaining in you.”  Still, there is the testimony of the Scriptures: “You search the Scriptures, because you think you have eternal life through them; even they testify on my behalf.”  But they fail to see that the Father testifies to me through the Scriptures because “you do not want to come to me to have life.”  The miracles — or “signs”, as John calls them — point to his divinity, to his divine origin, and this should have sent the Jewish leaders to the Scriptures to verify that this was the Son of God, but they could not get past his appearance: a Galilean from a tiny hamlet of no account, not educated by the Pharisees, and even contesting their interpretation of the Law.  How truly did Jesus say on at least one occasion, “Blessed is he who shall not be scandalized in me” (Matthew 11, 6).  He looked like any other man: “Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? . . . There is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness that we should be desirous of him” (Isaiah 53, 1-2).  And yet he was the Holy One of Israel, the Lord God of hosts.  Ultimately, the leaders of the Jews could not accept the truth that God so loved them that he would come among them as one of them: “You do not have the love of God in you.” 

“Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father: the one who will accuse you is Moses, in whom you have placed your hope.”  The lack of faith and belief in God’s love by Israel’s leaders was not only sad, but culpable, for they failed not only themselves but all of Israel.  “For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”  We might wonder where Moses wrote about Jesus.  The Lord refers to the popular belief that Moses had written the first five books of the Bible, the Torah.  Looking back with the eyes of faith we see that in Genesis 3, 15: “I will put enmities between you and the woman, and your seed and her seed: he shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel” a prophesy of the Redeemer of the human race, but even more clearly at the time there was this: “The Lord your God will raise up to you a prophet of your nation and of your brethren like unto me: him you shall hear him” (Deuteronomy 18, 15), after which God himself explains, speaking to Moses, “I will raise them up a prophet out of the midst of their brethren like to you: and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. And he that will not hear his words, which he shall speak in my name, I will be the revenger” (Deuteronomy 18:18–19).  Many prophets had arisen in Israel over the centuries, but none spoke like him, and none did his works.

The humanity of the Lord Jesus does not scandalize the person who is open to the truth about God’s love, but rather is an attraction.  This openness is a grace from God which we accept from him.  It is an enormous thing to believe that the Son of God walked among us and that he suffered and died and rose for us.  We should never take our faith for granted but see it as the most precious gift a person could have.  We should pray to be made stronger and more persevering in it, and for others to receive it as well.