Daily Gospel Reflection: Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Bishop Robert Barron
March 21, 2024
Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Gospel: Jn 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.
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus asserts his pre-existence by declaring that “before Abraham came to be, I AM.”
There has been a disturbing tendency in recent years to turn Jesus into an inspiring spiritual teacher. But if that’s all he is, the heck with him. The Gospels are never content with such a reductive description. Though they present him as a teacher, they know that he is infinitely more than that, that something else is at stake in him and our relation to him.
Scripture clearly teaches that Jesus is divine. He once declared, “Have faith in God; have faith also in me.” We can easily imagine other religious founders urging faith in God, but we’d be hard pressed to imagine them urging the same faith in themselves! But on Jesus’ lips, the two are parallel.
As C.S. Lewis so vividly saw, this means that Jesus compels us to make a choice the way no other figure does. Either you are with Jesus, or you are against him. There is no other way to take in this language. To get this wonderful paradox is to come close to the heart of what it means to be a Christian.
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