Tuesday in the Fourth Week of Easter, May 5, 2020

John 10:22-30

The feast of the Dedication was taking place in Jerusalem. It was winter. And Jesus walked about in the temple area on the Portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”

St. John is gratifyingly exact in providing details of the setting of our Lord’s preaching and miracles, especially when these took place in Jerusalem.  This makes me wonder if, contrary to tradition, he wrote his Gospel for the Jewish Christians of that city.  The fact that John names sites such as the Portico of Solomon, which ceased to exist after the fall of the city to the Romans in 70 A.D., seems to indicate that he was writing before that event took place.

John tells us that Jesus was speaking, here, during the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple after the Maccabees recaptured it from the Greeks.  This feast usually goes by the name of Hanukkah today.  This takes place usually in our month of December.  The weather in Israel at that time tends to be cool and rainy.  The Portico or Porch of Solomon was a walled courtyard outside the temple and facing its gates.

It is in this holy place at a time when the Jews commemorated a military victory over their persecutors that a crowd gathers around Jesus and demands from him, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”  These people want a leader to take them into battle against the Romans.  They want Jesus to tell them that he is “the Christ”, the anointed one, of their dreams.  They are not asking him whether he is the Son of God who will set them free from sin.  This is why they accuse him of keeping them in suspense, even though he has made quite clear his identity as the true Christ of God.  Jesus therefore says to them, “I told you and you do not believe.”  He then refers to the works he has performed as signs of the Christ he is: those of healing the blind and the lame, even of raising the dead, casting out demons, and feeding large crowds with only a small basket of food.  These are hardly the signs of a military leader.  We see here the desperation of an oppressed people, but also their obstinacy in demanding that the one whom God would send must do as they say and conform to their expectations.  

The Lord speaks next of their lack of belief.  If they want to believe in him and call him ”Lord”, then it must be on his terms and not theirs.  If they cannot do this, then they prove only that they are not of his flock.  But “my sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.”  The sheep follow, they do not lead.  The crowd which has approached him here wants to lead him into doing what they want, victory over the Romans.  But the Lord tells them once more about the victory that he offers, one that far surpasses their desire: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.”

The overcoming of our will to conform it to that of Jesus is the work of the spiritual life.  We see an illustration here of how difficult that is.  These people had seen and heard Christ’s works and words with their own eyes and ears and they still could not overcome themselves.  Let us see in what ways our wills still conflict with that of our Lord so that we might become more like him and be worthy of bearing his name.