April 02, 2020

I Swear to God

"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?