Thursday March 18

Fourth Week of Lent

 

Jesus Mediator

 

Introduction   

From today on and in the Holy Week, the opposition between the Jewish leaders and Jesus is growing. People always tend to adore their own god—a god or gods made in their own image and likeness, rather than accepting in humility, conscious of our limitations, that we are made in the image and likeness of God.

But we are fortunate enough to have Christ—as the Hebrews had Moses—a mediator who pleads for us, whom we can easily accept and identify with because in him we can recognize one of us, who opts for people, who defends us, who is involved with us in spite of our failures.

 

Opening Prayer

Lord our God, we know,
perhaps more in theory than in practice,
that you are with us,
that you are our God and we your people.
Forgive us, Lord, when we fashion
our own gods made in our own image –
honor, power, prestige,
things to which we are attached and enslaved.
Remind us again and again
that you are our loyal God,
who made us in your own indelible image
and who shows us your perfect likeness
in Jesus Christ, your Son and our Lord.

 

Reading 1:  Ex 32:7-14

The LORD said to Moses,
“Go down at once to your people
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt,
for they have become depraved.
They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,
making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it,
sacrificing to it and crying out,
‘This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt!'”
The LORD said to Moses,
“I see how stiff-necked this people is.
Let me alone, then,
that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them.
Then I will make of you a great nation.”

But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying,
“Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people,
whom you brought out of the land of Egypt
with such great power and with so strong a hand?
Why should the Egyptians say,
‘With evil intent he brought them out,
that he might kill them in the mountains
and exterminate them from the face of the earth’?
Let your blazing wrath die down;
relent in punishing your people.
Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel,
and how you swore to them by your own self, saying,
‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky;
and all this land that I promised,
I will give your descendants as their perpetual heritage.'”
So the LORD relented in the punishment
he had threatened to inflict on his people.

 

Responsorial Psalm: Ps 106:19-20, 21-22, 23

(4a) Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Our fathers made a calf in Horeb
and adored a molten image;
They exchanged their glory
for the image of a grass-eating bullock.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,
Wondrous deeds in the land of Ham,
terrible things at the Red Sea.
R.  Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

Then he spoke of exterminating them,
but Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach
to turn back his destructive wrath.
R.  Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.

 

Verse before the Gospel: Jn 3:16

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son,
so that everyone who believes in him might have eternal life.

 

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?”

 

Intercessions

• For priests and religious, that the Lord may give them the strength and the joy to be shining lights of all they stand for, we pray:
• For those who have become unfaithful to their baptismal promises, that they may they find the way back to the Lord, we pray:
• For Christians, that their lives may bear witness to the compassion and goodness of the Lord, we pray:

 

Prayer over the Gifts

God, your Son is still alive among us
in this eucharistic celebration.
Make us realize
that, despite our false attachments,
our hesitation and cowardice,
he opts for us, he is involved with us,
he is your sign among us
that you still accept and love us.
God, thank you for Jesus, your Son,
who stays with us and shares our destiny
now and for ever.

 

Prayer after Communion

Lord our God,
we thank you for giving us Jesus
as your living sign among us
of your strong and faithful love.
May we too, Lord,
everyone of us who claims to be
a disciple of Jesus Christ,
take the risk of being to our brothers and sisters
a firm support, a true sign
of your everlasting love.
May this be the way we testify
that Jesus is alive among us,
now and for ever.

 

Blessing

May the good you do, even when done in all simplicity, bear witness that the Lord is alive among us. May almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 

Commentary  

St. John the evangelist uses a literary style in his Gospel to make it effectively look like the trial that Jesus conducts where the religious leaders and teachers of the law are exposed. Today’s Gospel presents a kind of court-room investigation where Jesus would conduct his own defence. In Jewish law, truth was to be ascertained by the testimony of two or more witnesses. From conducting his own defence, Jesus would move to assume the role of prosecutor, with the Jews becoming the defendants.
Jesus for his defence, proceeds to list four witnesses:
• God the Father – His own Father
• John (the Baptist),
• his life and work,
• the Hebrew Scriptures – The Thora and the Prophets
The evangelist, while writing his Gospel, was not particularly concerned about how the Jews would accept these witnesses. Because, no matter what the argument was, the Jews were not going to accept the teachings of Jesus. John’s attempt is to encourage his fellow disciples of the early Church who were facing severe oppositions from the Jews in particular. John is presenting the four witnesses of Jesus as the witnesses of the Christian Community of his time for continued faith in Jesus.
The believers had experienced the risen Jesus in their own hearts. It was that profound experience of Jesus that gave them the strength to courageously face persecutions. Now John wants his community to contemplate on this living presence of Jesus amidst them and his mighty works. Their abiding in Jesus would be a powerful source of nourishment for faith. He wanted them also to reread their Scriptures in the light of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
Many people were puzzled that if Jesus were truly the long-awaited Messiah, why did people continue to close their minds and hearts to Jesus? One conclusion they had reached to explain the lack of faith was the power of peer-pressure: It refers to the pressure of of needing to belong and fearing to be excluded of human honour. Jesus did not care about any human honour. Invariably, peer-acceptance is a powerful motivating force even in our own environment. Many Jews who might otherwise have accepted Jesus were afraid to do so, because they would be dictatorially excommunicated.
What are the concerns that trouble me as a Christian and that threaten my life in faith?