Coffee With God

Reflection: Jn 5:31-47

Today we are ten days away from the beginning of Holy Week. It is a good time to renew our commitments we have taken up on the Ash Wednesday. We began with prayers fasting for world peace. Because it is the Lenten season, we are probably a bit more spiritual than at some other times of year; probably a bit more patient, a bit more humble. This is good – and worth DOING more consistently. John the evangelist uses a literary style in his Gospel to make it effectively look like a trial that Jesus conducts, where the religious leaders are exposed. The 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 brings in four witnesses in his defence: God the Father – His own Father, John (the Baptist), his own life and signs he performed, and the Hebrew Scriptures – The Thora and the Prophets But no matter what the arguments of Jesus were, the Jews were not going to accept him. Decades later, while writing the Gospel, John presents those four witness of Jesus in an attempt to encourage the Christians of the early Church. The Church was facing severe persecutions and John brings up these witnesses to tell the disciples why should they continue to believe in Jesus. It was the profound experience of the risen Jesus that gave the Christians of the early Church the strength to face persecutions courageously. Now John wants his community to meditate on this living presence of Jesus amidst them. John wants them to meditate on the life, teachings and signs of Jesus and also to re-read their Scriptures in the light of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. As we draw closer to the Holy Week and Easter, the Church invites us to meditate on why do many people continue to close their minds and hearts to Jesus? The Jewish leadership of Jesus’ time refused to accept him because of their faulty understandings of the scripture and traditions. They were afraid that acceptance of Jesus would jeopardise their social status and authority. Today, the Church invites us to re-read the scriptures in the light of various happenings in the world, where Christ is still rejected by many and the life of our universe is threatened by wars and violence. What are the concerns that trouble us as Christians, and that threaten our life in faith?