Daily Gospel Reflection: Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
March 14, 2024
Thursday of the Fourth Week of Lent
Gospel: Jn 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?"
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus establishes his authority for his words and actions.
You will recall that when at the outset of his ministry the Lord spoke in the synagogue at Capernaum, what first got the attention of the crowd was not what he said but the manner in which he said it. What did they notice? “The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”
We might miss this, but the relevant point is that rabbis and scribes taught through appeal to authorities beyond themselves, ultimately to the authority of Moses. But Jesus did not speak in this manner; rather, he spoke with exousia (authority).
What is being implied is that the Word, which spoke to Moses, and through Moses to every other teacher in Israel, is now speaking on his own authority. Don’t believe those who say that the divinity of Jesus is affirmed only in the prologue of the Gospel of John. This passage is, for a Jewish audience, just as clear an affirmation of Jesus’ divinity as John’s “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”
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