Saturday, March 21, 2015
4th Week of Lent
1st Reading: Jer 11:18–20
Gospel: Jn 7:40–53
Many who had been listening to these words began to say, “This is the Prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some wondered, “Would the Christ come from Galilee? Doesn’t Scripture say that the Christ is a descendant of David and from Bethlehem, the city of David?” The crowd was divided over him. Some wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
The officers of the Temple went back to the chief priests who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him?” The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man.” The Pharisees then said, “So you, too, have been led astray! Have any of the rulers or any of the Pharisees believed in him? Only these cursed people, who have no knowledge of the Law!”
Yet one of them, Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier, spoke out, “Does our law condemn people without first hearing them and knowing the facts?” They replied, “Do you, too, come from Galilee? Look it up and see for yourself that no prophet is to come from Galilee.” And they all went home.
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the
Assimilated
Life Experience)
The Jews thought they knew Jesus too well. After all he was just the boy next door. They were dead sure then that he couldn’t have come from above. But Jesus’ teachings and his works
The pivotal issue, then, decisive of whether or not to accept Jesus was Jesus’ origin. A little research would have revealed that although Jesus grew up in Nazareth he was actually born in Bethlehem. Might it be that they were afraid to do research lest they’d know the truth and be compelled to believe in Jesus and embrace his hard teachings? There was tension between what they could know and what they were willing to embrace.
Weren’t there moments in our lives when we preferred to stay away from God because getting near him entailed exhausting calisthenics on humility and forgiveness? We are treating God as a God with a shelf life; when it is no longer convenient to follow him we consider him expired. When we “hire and fire” God at our convenience, where does it put God and what does it make of us? We become masters and God our slave. To treat God this way is worse than treating him like the boy next door. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com. Website: www.frdan.org.
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