The words Jesus utters in today’s gospel ultimately lead to his death, for they were words which contradicted the religious sensibilities of the day. We will recall that for a Jewish individual contemporaneous to Jesus, to call the Almighty your “dad” (Abba), was a capital crime. Jewish people were instructed to never pronounce God’s name due to unworthiness and out of respect, so that the expression “Hallelujah” which we adopted from the Hebrew language which means, “Praised be God” (Yahweh) is actually an abbreviated form of what would otherwise be read as “Hallelujah-weh” (pronuounced, alle-loo-yah-way). Just as the words "God" and "Lord" are written by some Judaic observants even today as "G-d" and "L-rd". A noted scholar and researcher, Rabbi Yehuda Shurpin explains this as follows;
“Following the Torah’s instruction to “obliterate the name” of idolatry in the Land of Israel (Deuteronomy 12:3-4), the Torah warns us not to do the same to G‑d. We thus learn that there is a prohibition to erase G‑d’s name (Talmud, Shavuot 35a). Writing G‑d’s name could lead to erasing or disrespecting G‑d’s name…”
In a word, it was to protect against, what in their mind tantamounted to desecration. This too, is a noble aspiration and a beautiful custom of respect and it reminds the Franciscan of how the founder would tenderly pick up anything with the name of Jesus that was discarded and keep it. This is just one example of how shocking it must have been therefore, for the people to hear Jesus speaking of God using the familial and endearing terms and expressions that he did. It continued to stir the murderous spirit that had gotten a hold of them, and Jesus being aware of this, could already see the cross ahead.
It also reminds us that one thing our Muslim brothers and sisters and of course our Jewish brethren cannot come to terms with, is the familiarity with which Jesus taught us to relate to God. For them, God is the transcendent, absolute, one and only God of Abraham whom the heavens and the earth cannot contain. We would say that is a correct statement, yet incomplete. God’s omnipotence and transcendence includes his ability to make himself tangible and corporeal, and in the Incarnation we find both.
A wise professor once tried to trick his students with a conundrum. He explained how God can do all things—that he is omnipotent. “So, can God create a boulder too heavy for him to carry?” The professor thought he had the class beat, yet one student put up his hand. “Sir, God can do all things and that includes choosing to make himself weak. Therefore he could make a boulder too heavy for himself, should he choose to be not strong enough to lift it.” At first, students looked at each other and tried to dissect what their fellow in arms had just said. Then it dawned on them, that in the mystery of the Incarnation, this is precisely what Christ, who was God from all eternity, did. Saint Paul, writing to the Philippians about Christ’s humility put it this way; “He emptied himself, and took the form of a slave” (Philippians 2:7), and in so doing he never lost his identity, his ”personhood” as the Second Person of the Divine Trinity. All you would need to do is replace the boulder in the professor's analogy, to the cross, and the student wins the point!
We would do well to clarify this major aspect of Christology that will help you to remember a very basic and important distinction when it comes to Christ’s identity and which in turn will illuminate many things described in the bible that involve him: Jesus is composed of two natures (human and divine) but he is only one Person (the Eternal Second Person, Son of the Father).
With that as our backdrop, we head back to the gospel for today. Here is Jesus, in his true human nature but speaking as the Second Person of the Trinity in calling the First Person, the Eternal Father, his own dad. God is father to us all, but the people listening to him understood him very clearly to be speaking of God as his dad, in a particular, unique, and elevated way. This wasn’t solely a point of contention for the Jewish people of Jesus’ time. It was heavily debated in the early Church in issues such as whether or not Jesus assumed a true human nature from conception or was it given to him at his baptism (Adoptionism), or was it just a “costume”, given that he was God at the same time? (Docetism) Was he created, made or generated (Arianism)?
This reminds us of the beauty and splendour of that relationship between the Eternal Father and Son, and Jesus’ own words in the gospel today convey his deep love and union which he enjoyed with His Father from all eternity. It is a timeless love, unbound by the limitations and restrictions of our natural world. It is a love so extraordinary and beyond our knowledge that it has no beginning and no end.
Through the Incarnation, Christ who is God makes himself more accessible. He conceals his divinity, which would overpower us, beneath the veil of his flesh. Yet, there's more! In the Incarnation Jesus also makes the Father, who is God, more accessible and it is reflected in the way he desires us to address him, as "our Father" and also the Holy Spirit whom Jesus describes as a Person and not as a mere abstract spirit. The fullness of the Godhead became accessible to us in Christ. Hence, no need to fear as he desires us to draw close. "How can we not desire to come face to face with our God who chose to become as small as a baby first, then a piece of bread, born in a manger to feed us all? He made himself weak so that we may not fear telling Him about our own weaknesses." (1)
For this reason, when they questioned Jesus about what he meant when he said he was “greater than Abraham”, he said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Jesus gives to himself the same designation revealed by God to Moses when the latter asked who he should tell the Israelites in Egypt sent him—“I Am Who I Am”. When they heard that, they picked up stones to stone him. How dare Jesus assume to be worthy not only to call God his dad, but now to call himself by the same name God called himself in the Old Testament. The scriptures are clear in the eighth chapter of John’s gospel, that in their mind he usurped that title and in so doing, “he had made himself equal to God.” They were wrong of course in thinking that he was merely assuming this name blasphemously. Rather, he did not need to assume a name which already belonged to him.
“I Am Who I Am” – Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
In today’s gospel once again, we see them wanting to put him to death “…because, not content with breaking the sabbath, he spoke of God as his own Father, and so made himself God’s equal.” John 5:17.
He responds to this accusation, not by taking a step back and trying to escape the death plots, but by intensifying his clarity as regards the oneness of him and the Father. He tells them that whoever did not honour him, was simultaneously not honouring the One who sent him; that “…as the Father raises from the dead, thus the Son gives life to whomever he chooses to.” St. Leo the Great once said that, "Christ, when he died, had to obey the law of the grave, but when he rose from the dead, he abolished it, to such an extent that he overthrew the perpetuity of death and changed it from eternal to temporal, for if through Adam all died, through Christ all will come back to life." Christ is divine, yet he is tender. He is God, yet he has known what our humanity is like and has stopped at nothing so as to offer us an eternity with him, because this is what Love would do. Another great pontiff once declared, “Christ is a divine judge with a human heart, a judge who desires to give life. Only unrepentant obstinacy in evil can prevent him from giving this gift, for which he did not hesitate to face death" (St. John Paul II).
Jesus then reveals a number of interesting things that again scream equality with God. First of all, he says that the Father judges no one as he has entrusted all judgment to the Son. This is interesting. For example, how many times do we have a mistaken image or impression of a God full of wrath and ready to reign down his judgment on his sons and daughters? By the mere fact that he is teaching us to rather think of God as a Father is an indication he is trying to correct our mistaken assumption. That said, he goes on to reveal that all judgment was given to him. That is, at the particular and universal judgment it is before Jesus whom we must stand trial, and Jesus declares that the Father has willed this, why? “So that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. Whoever refuses honour to the Son, refuses honour to the Father who sent him.” Jesus also warned us that this gift from God could be rejected and lead to condemnation, and it all happens at some point in our future, as he did not come into the world to judge, but to save. Judgement comes later. The Church teaches in the Catechism that,
"Christ is the Lord of eternal life. The full right to judge definitively the works and hearts of men belongs to Christ as Redeemer of the world. The Son did not come to judge but to save and to give the life that is in him. It is by the rejection of grace in this life that each one already judges himself; and he can also condemn himself eternally by rejecting the Spirit of love" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 679).
The saints lived in a way where they not only embraced Jesus in this life but desired with all their heart to be with him as soon as possible. It was like they missed him, while they were still here in the body. Saint Francis of Assisi asked to be laid on the bare floor and in his dying moments asked that the gospel of John be read to him, starting from the last Supper. And then in the sweet incantation of the psalms, he breathed his last breath.
Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen frequently spoke of his death, much to the consternation of his friends.
“It is not that I do not love life; I do,” he would assure them. “It is just that I want to see the Lord. I have spent hours before Him in the Blessed Sacrament. I have spoken to Him in prayer, and about Him to everyone who would listen, and now I want to see Him face-to-face.”
In the words of Donald DeMarco, “Pope Benedict XVI found Fulton Sheen’s life worthy of bestowing on him the title “Venerable.” And the “Venerable” make their home in paradise.”
May the Lord give you the grace to desire him with the same intensity as these saints. “What did they have, that you don’t have?” is a question people like asking when they are trying to encourage us. Only, let us take that question and ponder it during Lent, so that maybe what they had, we can also in some measure come to possess and so that what they now possess in heaven, we too may one day with them enjoy. Peace and joy.
(1) Simona Gelao
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Love your wish. How can we not desire to come face to face with our God who chose to become as small as a baby first, then a piece of bread, born in a manger to feed us all? He made himself weak so that we may not be scared of telling Him about our weaknesses. How I adore the mystery of incarnation.
Precisely why he conceals himself, so like Moses who beheld the burning fire and wanted to draw closer to inspect this mysterious scene, as you say, in that tiny child, Almighty God draws us in to take a little closer look at Himself. Great comment. Thanks