Coffee With God

Reflection: John 7:40-53

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 priests most was the act of Jesus raising Lazarus to life. People regarded him as the Prophet or the Messiah. The scribes and the Pharisees could not appreciate the openness and mercy of God that Jesus revealed through his life. They had monopolised the concepts of temple, scriptures and God. The ordinary people had no easy access to God except through them. Jesus preached a different face of God. The leadership wanted to discredit Jesus. They assigned the temple Police to find faults in his teachings to arrest him. False accusations, unjust detentions and unfair trails and wrong sentencing are nothing uncommon even in our times. They would capture and torture Jesus and will kill him for raising someone to life. But, through his dying, Jesus will give life to all who come to him. Despite the threats from the powers that be, whoever came in contact with the person of Jesus, grew in admiration of him. Jesus is a magnet – he draws close to him whomever he loves. The temple police who were assigned to arrest Jesus became his admirers. Nicodemus who had initially approached Jesus by night, would choose to step out from the darkness, courageously allowing himself to be identified. 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 their right to live in dignity are suppressed by the powers that be. This powerful minority would determine the future of the hapless majority. This is the logic of this world. But the dictators and emperors of the past have disappeared into oblivion. Jesus and his Church thrive, giving God’s life to the world.