Thursday in the Fourth Week of Lent, March 31, 2022

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?”

I think that for most people, the hardest parts of the Bible to read are the genealogies in the Old Testament, St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, and certain sections, like this one, from the Gospel according to St. John.  And then there is the whole book of Revelation which intimidates potential readers with the mysterious creatures and monsters as well as the numbers with their opaque meanings.  St. John records teachings of the Lord that the other Evangelists mostly did not, preferring his simpler, shorter sayings for their particular audiences.  It is possible that St. John’s intended readers were not any more learned than those of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but it is clear at the very beginning of his Gospel that John is fascinated by certain terms the Lord Jesus used in his teaching, and certain themes that he developed during the three years of his Public Life: “spirit”, “birth”, “bread”, “water”, and “life” are some of these.  “Testimony” is also very important to John.  He emphasizes more than once in his Gospel that he is reporting on what he himself had seen.  He repeats this claim even in the first of his three Letters.  He speaks of the Word of life “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled” (1 John 1, 1).  He himself as seen and heard and touched the Son of God-made-man, and, as he quotes the Lord in the present Gospel reading, this One himself explains how the Father testifies of him through the works which he does.

In the reading, the Lord Jesus says, “If I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is not true.”. That is, he is not asking the Jews to accept anything he says about himself regarding his divinity.  However, “There is another who testifies on my behalf.”  This is “the Father who sent me”.  He “testifies” through the miracles which his Son performs.  If Jesus were a fraud making extraordinary claims, he would not be able to give sight to the blind or cure the lame.  These are works which require divine power.  A man without God’s favor will certainly not be able to perform them: “The works that the Father gave me to accomplish, these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”  On another occasion he will plead, “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works: that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (John 10, 37-38).   In the Lord’s insistence that his Father bears him witness, he even discounts, rhetorically, the testimony of one who was merely human — John the Baptist: “You sent emissaries to John, and he testified to the truth. I do not accept human testimony.”

He explains to the unbelieving Jews why they do not believe in him: it is because they do not believe the Father’s testimony, for, “you have never heard his voice nor seen his form, and you do not have his word remaining in you.”  They believe in a god of their own making and identify him as the God of Abraham and Moses rather than learn from the Law and the Prophets who God really is, for his “voice” and “form” are contained therein.  Indeed, they speak of the Son as well: “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.”  That is, the Pharisees “search” the Scriptures for validation of what they want to believe, but instead they should be examining their beliefs to see if they are in accord with God’s revelation.  If they studied God’s word carefully and honestly, they would know that it points to him, Jesus, as his Son, but their pride keeps them from doing this, lest what they learn tell them what they do not want to hear: “You do not want to come to me to have life.”

“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 Pharisees declare that what they teach is founded securely on the Law which came from God through Moses.  This is not so because their interpretation of the Law deviates severely from the Law.  At the Judgment, Moses will not speak on their behalf to Almighty God; he will accuse them of using the Law to further their own interests.  The Lord tells them, “If you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, because he wrote about me.”  That is, the words Moses wrote would have led them to a far different and accurate understanding of who the Messiah was.  Moses did not write about the Lord in the explicit way that Isaiah did, but he laid the groundwork for the later prophetic statements he and the other Prophets would make.  “But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”  The Lord Jesus says “you do not believe his writings”, not “you do not understand his writings”.  The first is a matter of reading in bad faith and the second is part of the human condition, a limitation.  The first is a malicious act of disbelief and the second is a matter of weakness.  They studied the Law, but they did not “believe” it ad so they would not believe in Jesus either.  The Pharisees believed that they were the masters of the Law, not its servants, just as certain scholars today, deep in their hearts, believe that they are masters of the Word of God and not its servants.  They change its meaning to suit their tastes and the presuppositions that come from their pride.  Belief “raises” the thing or person believed in while “lowering” the believer.  The believer is always the servant of what or whom he believes in.  But the Pharisees would have themselves be the masters.

If we believe in Jesus Christ, then we are his servants and he is our Master.  Let us lower ourselves however we can so that we may serve him well, and have the life he came to give us.