Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent
FAITH IN GOD’S WORD, COVENANT
Our communion with God, our salvation, depends on faith. God makes his offer of a covenant; we have to trust the word of God. Abraham believed in God’s word and his faith changed the destiny of himself (hence the new name) and of his people. Many Jews did not believe and cut themselves off from their ancestors and from God’s new people. God speaks to us through his Word, who is a person: Jesus Christ. If we believe in him, we become the new people of the new covenant by baptism, and the Promised Land will be ours.
Reading 1: Genesis 17:3-14
Then God said to him, “This is my covenant with you: You’ll be the father of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham, meaning that ‘I’m making you the father of many nations.’ I’ll make you a father of fathers—I’ll make nations from you, kings will issue from you. I’m establishing my covenant between me and you, a covenant that includes your descendants, a covenant that goes on and on and on, a covenant that commits me to be your God and the God of your descendants. And I’m giving you and your descendants this land where you’re now just camping, this whole country of Canaan, to own forever. And I’ll be their God.”
God continued to Abraham, “And you: You will honor my covenant, you and your descendants, generation after generation. This is the covenant that you are to honor, the covenant that pulls in all your descendants: Circumcise every male. Circumcise by cutting off the foreskin of the penis; it will be the sign of the covenant between us. Every male baby will be circumcised when he is eight days old, generation after generation—this includes house-born slaves and slaves bought from outsiders who are not blood kin. Make sure you circumcise both your own children and anyone brought in from the outside. That way my covenant will be cut into your body, a permanent mark of my permanent covenant. An uncircumcised male, one who has not had the foreskin of his penis cut off, will be cut off from his people—he has broken my covenant.”
Gospel: John 8:51-59
At this point the Jews said, “Now we know you’re crazy. Abraham died. The prophets died. And you show up saying, ‘If you practice what I’m telling you, you’ll never have to face death, not even a taste.’ Are you greater than Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you think you are!”
Jesus said, “If I were striving to get all the attention, it wouldn’t amount to anything. But my Father, the same One you say is your Father, put me here at this time and place of splendor. You haven’t recognized him in this. But I have. If I, in false modesty, said I didn’t know what was going on, I would be as much of a liar as you are. But I do know, and I am doing what he says. Abraham—your ‘father’—with elated faith looked down the corridors of history and saw my day coming. He saw it and cheered.”
The Jews said, “You’re not even fifty years old—and Abraham saw you?”
“Believe me,” said Jesus, “I am who I am long before Abraham was anything.”
That did it—pushed them over the edge. They picked up rocks to throw at him. But Jesus slipped away, getting out of the Temple.
Prayer
Lord God,
in your Son, Jesus Christ,
you have given us a new name,
the name of your Son himself.
May we live the name up to our new destiny,
to be people-for-others
who serve and commit ourselves
together with Jesus,
your Son and our Lord for ever.
Reflection:
30 March 2023
John 8: 51-59
God lives in the hearts of his people.
Jesus continues to challenge the Jews about his identity. “Whoever keeps my word will never see death.” They could not understand anything beyond the literal meaning of the spoken words, and naturally, they failed to grasp the meaning of “never seeing death.” Today’s readings set before us God’s promises. The first reading spoke of God’s promise to father Abraham, and the Gospel promises those who believe in Jesus a life without death!
Each of us has been chosen. We are Christians because the Lord has chosen us. The choice is always of God, but he has given us the freedom to believe in his promises. Abraham was chosen by God and was given the promise of becoming the father of a host of nations. Abraham believed in the promises and entered into a covenant with God – a commitment for life.
In today’s Gospel, John presents the argument between Jesus and the religious scholars, where the Pharisees kept repeating: “there are laws we must observe!”. All they cared about was fulfilling the laws, and they thought they could please God by observing the laws. Pope Francis says, “They did so because their hearts were closed, their minds were closed. “When our hearts and minds are closed, there is no room for God. Jesus cannot convince a closed mind; it is impossible to give a new message”.
The Pharisees in today’s Gospel had one single way of thinking, and they wanted to impose their way of thinking on everyone else. Jesus reproaches them for adopting a “theology that was a slave to their rigid-mindedness. Today the uniform thought – or considering my way as the only right way – has been made into an idol.
The Gospel is a challenge for us today to acknowledge our identity as Christians and believe in the promises of Christ. We are Christians because, like Abraham and Blessed Virgin Mother, we have said yes to God’s choice. “They took up stones to throw at him,” we read in the Gospel… “Jesus hid himself and left the temple.” In the prologue, too, John wrote about this rejection: “He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him.”
The Pharisees took stones to throw at him, but Jesus “ …left the temple.” And “he left the Temple”. Remember the Gospel account, when Jesus died on the cross, the veil guarding the Holy of Holies in the temple split right open, revealing that God was no longer there. He had left the temple. And he now dwells in a new Temple, among the people, the Church, the Body of Christ.