Saturday March 20

Fourth Week of Lent

 

Sign of Contradiction

 

Introduction

It is hard for a person who “has been seduced by God,” as Jeremiah says, to be rejected by the very community to which one has dedicated one’s life and before which one bears witness to the spiritual. He is a source of division. So was Jesus. Are we willing to take the risks of being Christian, of being signs of contradiction with Christ? If we can, it will surely hurt. We will be contradicted and ridiculed. Can we accept this with equanimity? It has become our responsibility when we were baptized.

 

Opening Prayer

Almighty God,
when people encountered your Son,
he became a source of division:
he affected their lives
one way or another.
May we accept him fully
and empty ourselves to make room for him
in our everyday life, even when it hurts.
Help us, that with him
we may always seek and do your will.
We ask you this through Christ our Lord.

 

Reading 1: Jer 11:18-20

I knew their plot because the LORD informed me;
at that time you, O LORD, showed me their doings.

Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter,
had not realized that they were hatching plots against me:
“Let us destroy the tree in its vigor;
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will be spoken no more.”

But, you, O LORD of hosts, O just Judge,
searcher of mind and heart,
Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause!

 

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 7:2-3, 9BC-10, 11-12

(2a) O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.
O LORD, my God, in you I take refuge;
save me from all my pursuers and rescue me,
Lest I become like the lion’s prey,
to be torn to pieces, with no one to rescue me.
R. O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

Do me justice, O LORD, because I am just,
and because of the innocence that is mine.
Let the malice of the wicked come to an end,
but sustain the just,
O searcher of heart and soul, O just God.
R.  O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

A shield before me is God,
who saves the upright of heart;
A just judge is God,
a God who punishes day by day.
R.  O Lord, my God, in you I take refuge.

 

Verse before the Gospel: Lk 8:15

Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart
and yield a harvest through perseverance.

 

Gospel: Jn 7:40-53

Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said,
“This is truly the Prophet.”
Others said, “This is the Christ.”
But others said, “The Christ will not come from Galilee, will he?
Does not Scripture say that the Christ will be of David’s family
and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”
So a division occurred in the crowd because of him.
Some of them even wanted to arrest him,
but no one laid hands on him.

So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees,
who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?”
The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.”
So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived?
Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.”
Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them,
“Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him
and finds out what he is doing?”
They answered and said to him,
“You are not from Galilee also, are you?
Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

Then each went to his own house.

 

Intercessions

• That we may accept with serenity when we are contradicted or ridiculed because of our faith, we pray:
• That all those who suffer may put themselves into the hands of God, we pray:
• That Christians may always take sides in favor of what is right and good, we pray:

 

Prayer over the Gifts

God, our Father,
your Son came among us
to live before our eyes
the life of a loving Son
and a faithful servant.
He is now here in our midst.
Like him, Lord,
may we not seek popularity
or peace at any cost.
So we ask you to give us the courage
to go against the current of opinion
when faithfulness to you so demands.
We ask you this through Christ our Lord.

 

Prayer after Communion

God, to be faithful to you
and honest with ourselves
is not always comfortable.
Neither was it for your Son Jesus.
We pray you today:
May hardships and misunderstanding
not fill us with bitterness,
but may they be useful in a small way
to bring life and hope
to us and to our neighbor,
as we are united with Jesus,
your Son and our Lord for ever.

 

Blessing

If we are contested because of our faith and its implications, may God give us the insight and strength not to be afraid but to bear witness to the Lord and to what is right and good. May almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

Commentary

The Gospel today presents yet another confrontation of Jesus with the ruling class – as we read through, we immediately realise it as, all too familiar occurrence of our present times, in our society. Invariably majority of people in power, be it in the time of Jesus or in the present day, in whichever part of the world they may be, live in fools’ paradise, telling themselves that the power and honour they possess are absolute and eternal! Dictators have ruled nations of the world and many of them do even today, believing nothing in the universe can overthrow them. This foolish sense of infallibility raises in them a contempt for ordinary people. They discarded common people as illiterate and uneducated.

The temple authorities realised that Jesus was a growing nuisance. He had repeatedly questioned their style of observing the Sabbath and both Jesus and the disciples were accused of breaking the Sabbath law. He welcomed the sinners and tax-collectors – the socially outcast people into his company and shared meals with them.

But what shocked the Pharisees and the high priests most was Jesus raising Lazarus to life. People regarded him as the Prophet or the Messiah. The puritans could not appreciate the openness and mercy that Jesus proposed through his life. They wanted to discredit the popularity of Jesus. Therefore, they assigned the temple Police to find faults in his teachings and to arrest him. False accusations, unjust detentions and unfair trails and wrong sentencing are nothing uncommon even in our times. Jesus will be captured and killed for raising someone to life. The irony doesn’t end there: It will be through his dying, Jesus will give his life to all who come to him.

But often the law enforcement agencies remain helpless before autocratic power-centers. High Priests and the pharisees disdained the temple police because they admired Jesus. In confronting the majority, Nicodemus showed unusual courage. He had initially approached Jesus by night, afraid to identify himself publicly as one intrigued by Jesus [3:2]. Now, he had stepped out from the darkness, courageously choosing to allow himself to be identified, and, thereby, threatening the closed unanimity of the Pharisee group. (He would appear again at the foot of the Cross to bury the body of Jesus.

The history repeats. The cry of the suffering majority for justice and right to live in dignity are suppressed by the powerful minority. This minority will apparently determine the future of the hapless majority. This is the logic of this world. But the dictators and emperors have disappeared yet, Jesus and his Church live, giving God’s life to the world.