 |
| "The Pharisees Question Jesus," by J. Tissot. Brooklyn Museum / Public Domain. |
For
Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Today
we hear Christ pronounce the words of a binding promise: Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever keeps my
word will never see death.
Some
who heard Christ speak these words challenged him, asking, in effect, “Just who
do you think you are, claiming as you do that no one who keeps YOUR words shall ever know death?”
Christ
answers this question for them in two steps.
The
first step in Christ’s answer goes like this:
I know the Father, your God. Yes, I know him well, and I keep
his word.
In
the second step in his answer Christ gives himself the name of God:
Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came
to be, I AM.
People
recognized this as criminal and vulgar blasphemy spoken at the very house of
God.
So,
they picked up stones, since the law from God required that a blasphemer be put
to death by stoning.
Had
you and I been there, Christ’s words would have shocked us as well, were it not
that we have received the gift of faith to see, know and bow down before the
meaning of his words.
Christ
knows the Father, the God of Abraham.
Christ
keeps the word of God, and cannot do otherwise, because he IS the Word of God—
the Word of God alive as a man of flesh and blood.
He
is God revealing God to us.
Our
faith in THIS revelation— our faith in THIS WORD— opens for us the way to never-ending life.
In
the Eucharist, God gives his Word— his Promise— in his own Flesh and Blood.
However,
he does so while expecting us to enter the Promise with him.
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever KEEPS my word will never see
death.
When
we say “Amen” to the Eucharist of Christ, we are agreeing to keep his word.
We
swear to God in the Eucharistic Christ to give up our bodies for him and to
pour out our blood for him.
How
could it be otherwise as we expect him to do that for us in his Eucharist?
