April 8, 2025
Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Lectionary: 252
Reading 1
From Mount Hor the children of Israel set out on the Red Sea
road,
to bypass the land of Edom.
But with their patience worn out by the journey,
the people complained against God and Moses,
"Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert,
where there is no food or water?
We are disgusted with this wretched food!"
In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents,
which bit the people so that many of them died.
Then the people came to Moses and said,
"We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you.
Pray the LORD to take the serpents away from us."
So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses,
"Make a saraph and mount it on a pole,
and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live."
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,
and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent
looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (2) O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry
come to you.
O LORD, hear my prayer,
and let my cry come to you.
Hide not your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Incline your ear to me;
in the day when I call, answer me speedily.
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
The nations shall revere your name, O LORD,
and all the kings of the earth your glory,
When the LORD has rebuilt Zion
and appeared in his glory;
When he has regarded the prayer of the destitute,
and not despised their prayer.
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
Let this be written for the generation to come,
and let his future creatures praise the LORD:
"The LORD looked down from his holy height,
from heaven he beheld the earth,
To hear the groaning of the prisoners,
to release those doomed to die."
R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
Verse Before the Gospel
The seed is the word of God, Christ is the sower;
all who come to him will live for ever.
Gospel
Jesus said to the Pharisees:
"I am going away and you will look for me,
but you will die in your sin.
Where I am going you cannot come."
So the Jews said,
"He is not going to kill himself, is he,
because he said, 'Where I am going you cannot come'?"
He said to them, "You belong to what is below,
I belong to what is above.
You belong to this world,
but I do not belong to this world.
That is why I told you that you will die in your sins.
For if you do not believe that I AM,
you will die in your sins."
So they said to him, "Who are you?"
Jesus said to them, "What I told you from the beginning.
I have much to say about you in condemnation.
But the one who sent me is true,
and what I heard from him I tell the world."
They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father.
So Jesus said to them,
"When you lift up the Son of Man,
then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own,
but I say only what the Father taught me.
The one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him."
Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/040825.cfm
Commentary on
Numbers 21:4-9
Today, we see the Israelites on their long journey through
the desert to the Promised Land. They are quite near their final goal. In their
way stood the territory of Edom. In spite of requests to pass through without
causing any trouble, they are turned down.
Moses, however, was determined not to engage Edom in battle,
and the people became impatient with him and also with God for the direction in
which they were being taken. They were full of confidence, having just won a
victory over Arad, a territory lying between the Dead Sea and the
Mediterranean. They forgot that their victory over Arad had been granted by the
Lord in response to a solemn pledge to put a curse on the towns they attacked.
But now they have forgotten what they had done with God’s help and were ready
to rebel again.
As they make their way to the Sea of Suph, that is, towards
the Gulf of Aqaba (at the southern tip of modern Israel) and skirt around Edom,
they begin grumbling against God and Moses. They are finding life hard and wish
they had never left the slavery of Egypt, which now seems better than what they
are presently going through.
The focus of their complaints today is especially against
the manna, the food that God provided them six days a week:
Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the
wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest “this miserable
food”.
Their impatience leads them to blaspheme against Yahweh, to
reject Moses and despise the “bread from heaven” (the manna). This was more
serious than it might appear. By rejecting the food God was sending to them in
abundance, they were rejecting God himself.
Their complaining about the tastelessness of the food
represents a kind of tastelessness of their own, their ingratitude to God who
fed them in the desert and prevented them from dying of hunger. Like the
Israelites, thanksgiving to God for his blessings to us is often one of the
prayers we make least often.
It is then that God sends a plague of poisonous serpents
which kill many people. In Hebrew, they are called “poisonous [fiery] serpents”
(saraph), from the burning effect of their poisonous bite (the
word seraphim comes from the same root).
The people see this as a punishment from God for their
grumbling:
We have sinned by speaking against the Lord…
They beg Moses to intercede with God on their behalf. God
tells Moses to mount a bronze serpent on a pole, and says that anyone who is
bitten and looks at it will live. And so it happened.
The significance of this reading is clearly in its being a
foreshadowing of Christ on the cross. Later on Jesus will say:
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him
may have eternal life. (John 3:14-15)
The serpent only healed people of the bite of a snake.
Later, we are told in the Second Book of Kings that Hezekiah destroyed the
bronze serpent which Moses had made because it had become an object of
idolatry.
The life that Jesus gives from the cross is of a totally
different kind. And that is what we prepare to celebrate as we come to the end
of the Lenten season.
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Commentary on John
8:21-30
Listening to Jesus, the Pharisees must have thought he was
speaking in riddles. This was largely due to their own preconceived ideas about
him. They take every statement he makes literally (they are the original
Fundamentalists) and miss the symbolism. Basically, their problem is, as Jesus
points out, that they:
…are from below…you are from this world, I am not from
this world.
John uses the word ‘world’ in two senses. In one meaning, he
simply is referring to the world that God created with all its variety. Later,
he will tell his disciples that, if they want to communicate his message
effectively, they will have to be fully inserted in that world, like the leaven
in the dough. Separating themselves from that world will not do much for the
building of the Kingdom on earth.
The second meaning of ‘world’ for John refers to everything
around us which cannot be identified with God or Jesus. It is that part of our
environment which speaks and acts in a way that is contrary to the Spirit of
Jesus and the vision of Jesus for the world. Jesus does not identify himself
with that world, nor does he want any of his disciples to identify with it
either. Their mission is to change it, to shine his Light on it.
Twice in today’s passage Jesus says of himself “I AM”, an
expression we saw yesterday and which was used directly of God himself.
When they “have lifted up the Son of Man”, then they will
know who Jesus really is, and that everything that Jesus has said and done
comes from God himself because, as he will say later:
The Father and I are one. (John 10:30)
“Lifted up” not only refers to Jesus’ being lifted up on the
cross, but also includes the glorification of Jesus, his lifting up to sit at
the Father’s right hand. For John, the cross is Jesus’ moment of glory, the
triumphant climax of his mission. And because of these words, we are told,
“many” came to believe in him, but most of the Pharisees were not among them.
This is a time for us also to examine our allegiance to
Christ and what he means for us in our lives. Is our following of him truly a
healing and liberating experience, not only for ourselves, but for others as
well?
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/l1053g/
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Season of Lent
Opening Prayer
Our saving, merciful God, wandering
in our deserts
of injustice and lack of
love, we cry out with fear or are stunned into silence, some into doubt or
despair. Give us enough trusting faith to look up to him who took our evil and
doubts upon himself, suffered for them on a cross, and rose from them, Jesus
Christ, our Savior and our Lord.
Gospel Reading - John 8: 21-30
Jesus said to them: I am
going away; you will look for me and you will die in your sin. Where I am
going, you cannot come. So the Jews said to one another, 'Is he going to kill
himself, that he says, "Where I am going, you cannot come?" ' Jesus
went on: You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not
of this world. I have told you already: You will die in your sins. Yes, if you
do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.
So they said to him, 'Who
are you?' Jesus answered: What I have told you from the outset. About you I
have much to say and much to judge; but the one who sent me is true, and what I
declare to the world I have learnt from him. They did not recognize that he was
talking to them about the Father.
So Jesus said: When you
have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am He and that I do
nothing of my own accord. What I say is what the Father has taught me; he who
sent me is with me, and has not left me to myself, for I always do what pleases
him. As he was saying this, many came to believe in him.
Reflection
Last week, the Liturgy led
us to meditate on chapter five of the Gospel of John. This week it confronts us
with chapter 8 of the same Gospel. Like chapter 5, chapter 8 also contains
profound reflections on the mystery of God which surrounds the person of Jesus.
Apparently, it is a question of dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees (Jn 8:
13). The Pharisees want to know who Jesus is. They criticize him because he
gives testimony of himself without any proof or witness to legitimize himself
before the people (Jn 8: 13). Jesus responds by saying that he does not speak
in his own name, but always for the Father and in the name of the Father (Jn 8:
14-19).
In reality, the dialogues are also an
expression of how the faith was transmitted in the catechesis in the
communities of the beloved disciple toward the end of the first century. They
show the prayerful reading of the word of Jesus that the Christians did,
considering it Word of God. The method of question and answer helped to find
the response to the problems which toward the end of the first century, the
Jews raised to the Christians. It was a concrete way to help the community to
deepen its faith in Jesus and in his message.
•
John 8: 21-22: Where I am going, you cannot
come. Here John presents a new theme or another aspect which surrounds the
person of Jesus. Jesus speaks about his departure and says that where he is
going the Pharisees cannot follow him. “I am going away; you will look for me
and you will die in your sin.” They will look for Jesus, but will not find him,
because they do not know him and will look for him with mistaken criteria. They
live in sin and will die in sin. To live in sin is to live far away from God.
They imagine God in a certain way, but God
is different from what they imagine. This is why they are not capable to
recognize the presence of God in Jesus. The Pharisees do not understand what
Jesus wants to say and they take everything just literally: “Is he going to
kill himself?”
•
John 8: 23-24: You are from here below; I am
from above. The Pharisees consider everything according to the criteria of this
world. “You are from this world; I am not from this world!” The framework of
reference which guides Jesus in everything which he says and does is the world
above, that is, God, Father, and the mission which he has received from the
Father. The framework of reference of the Pharisees is the world below, without
openness, closed up in its own criteria. This is why they live in sin. To live
in sin is not to have the gaze of Jesus on their life. The look of Jesus is
totally open toward God up to the point that God himself is in him in all his
fullness (cf. Col 1: 19). We say: “Jesus is God.” John invites us to say: “God
is Jesus!” This is why Jesus says: “If you do not believe that I AM HE, you
will die in your sins.” I AM is the affirmation with which God presents himself
to Moses at the moment of liberating his people from the oppression of Egypt
(Ex 3: 13-14). This is the maximum expression of the absolute certainty of the
fact that God is in our midst in the person of Jesus. Jesus is the definitive
proof of the fact that God is with us. Emmanuel.
•
John 8: 25-26: Who are you? The mystery of God
in Jesus does not fit in the criteria with which the Pharisees look toward
Jesus. Once again, they ask: “who are you?” They did not understand because
they do not understand Jesus’ language. Jesus was very careful to speak to them
according to all that he experienced and lived in union with the Father and for
the knowledge and awareness of his mission. Jesus does not promote himself. He
only says and expresses what he hears from the Father. He is the pure
revelation because he is pure and total obedience.
•
John 8: 27-30: When you have lifted up the Son
of man, then you will know that I AM HE. The Pharisees did not understand that
Jesus, in everything he says and does, is the expression of the Father. They
will understand it only after the Son of man will be lifted up. “Then you will
know that I AM HE.” The word lifted up has a double sense, to be lifted up on
the Cross and to be lifted up to the right hand of the Father. The Good News of
the death and resurrection reveals who Jesus is, and they will know that Jesus
is the presence of God in our midst. The foundation of this certainty of our faith
is twofold: on the one side, the certainty that the Father is always with Jesus
and he never remains alone and, on the other side, the radical and total
obedience of Jesus to the Father, which becomes total openness and total
transparency of the Father for us.
Personal Questions
•
The one who closes up in his own criteria and
thinks that he already knows everything, will never be capable to understand
others. This is the way the Pharisees were before Jesus. And I, how do I behave
before others?
•
Jesus is radical obedience to the Father and
because of this he is total revelation of the Father. And which is the image of
God which I show, which comes from me?
Concluding Prayer
Yahweh, hear my prayer, let my
cry for help reach you.
Do not turn away your face from me when I am in
trouble; bend down and listen to me, when I call, be quick to answer me! (Ps
102,1-2)
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