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| Giusto |
3rd Passiontide
John 8:46-59 (adapted from Madsen)
[Jesus said,] Who among you convicts me of error? Why do you not trust in me, since I am proclaiming the true existence to you? Whoever is of God receives the words of God. The reason why you do not receive them is that you are not of God.
The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and are possessed by a demon?” Jesus answered, “I have no demon within me. Nothing but reverence for the Father lives in me; but you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who wills it and he will be the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever keeps my word in his heart is free of the sight of death through all earthly time.”
The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you are possessed by a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, ‘If any one keeps my word, he will never taste death for all time.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets who also died? Who do you think you are?”
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| Abraham's Vision, Tissot |
Jesus answered, “If it were my own aim to reveal my being, such a revelation would be worthless. But it is my Father who reveals me, and although you call him ‘our God’, you do not know him. But I know him. If I said, I do not know him, I would be deceived as you are; but I do know him, and I bear the power of his word within me. Your father Abraham rejoiced that it was granted to him to see the coming down of my being; he saw it and was filled with joy.”
The Jews then said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, from before the days Abraham was born, I existed as the I AM.” So they took up stones to hurl at him; but Jesus was concealed from them and left the temple.
3rd Passiontide
April 7, 2019
John 8: 46-59
As we get older, we may begin to lose our hearing. As the high tones disappear, we start to miss parts of words. If a key word fails, we may miss the meaning of the whole sentence. As the loss progresses, we may eventually become stone deaf, unaware that someone is speaking to us at all.
Our souls can go deaf too. At first, we miss little things. Indeed we are often unaware that we are missing anything at all, for the noise of living glosses it over. Gradually our souls and spirits become ‘hearing-impaired.’ We may only become aware of it when in inner crisis, our prayers and pleas fall into a great inner silence.
The Pharisee in all of us wants to insist that the truth be rational, literal and physical, and loud. Anything else is the senseless babbling of a madman, only worth throwing mental and verbal stones at.
It is part of Christ’s passion, his suffering, to go unheard, unrecognized and unacknowledged. Because of the inner deafness caused by hardening of our hearts, he is unable to do what he came to do—to open our soul’s ears to the words of the spirit.
“Why do you not trust in me, since I am proclaiming the true existence to you?” John 8:46
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| Tissot |
Our true grounding is within the spirit. The solidity of the certainty of Christ’s existence is the truth upon which we can stand. The heart is the ear of the soul, a resonating chamber for the words he wants to speak to us. His word pours life into our hearts and spirits. His word strengthens and clarifies. His word enlivens, lives in our hearts as his eternal life. Taken in, his word grants us existence in the realm of the spirit: For as He said, “Whoever keeps my word in his heart is free of the sight of death through all earthly time.” John 8: 51
