Faith

Be the sign not the sigh – Friday, 2nd Week of Easter – Acts 5:34-42/ John 6:1-15

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/forty-less-one/ based on the first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles.

Each of the four Gospels narrate the multiplication of the loaves and fish and while the synoptics tell it as a miracle story the Gospel of John wraps it up in greater theological meaning. The Gospel of John is the only Gospel that tells us that this ‘sign’ (remember that the Gospel of John has signs and not miracles) takes place close to the celebration of the Passover and that Jesus leads the people not into a ‘deserted place’ as in the synoptics but up a mountain. Why would John give us these details if not to pique our interest?

So, in order to understand today’s text, you need to read the closing verses of the previous chapter 5:39-47. Jesus gets into a verbal spat with the Jewish religious leaders. He pointedly accuses them of a failure to see in the scriptures they read the very message pertaining to himself as the source of life. He clearly tells them that they do not have the love of God in them and that it is Moses whom they revere, who will be their accuser. It is here that our text begins with these little clues. The very word Moses would jog one’s mind to the Passover and now St John tells us that the Passover was at hand.

St John’s Gospel has seven signs, not miracles. A sign always points to a greater reality and so in the feeding of the five thousand we are called to see the greater reality. The focus therefore is not the multiplication in itself but the person of Jesus who is responsible for it and on his divine nature. Thus, Jesus is presented as the new Moses. So, let’s see the similarities and comparisons in the text.

1. Moses went up a mountain to receive the ten commandments and he went alone. In John’s Gospel Jesus goes up the mountain but takes his disciples and a crowd that followed him.
2. While Moses parted the Red Sea in a supernatural act, Jesus feeds the five thousand via supernatural grace.
3. Jesus tests the disciples in today’s Gospel; we read this in John 6:6, “he said this to test him (Philip). In Exodus 16:4 God tells Moses that he “will rain bread from heaven for you and each day the people shall go out and gather enough for that day. In that way I WILL TEST THEM whether they will follow my instructions or not.”
4. In the Gospel of John, Jesus asks the disciples to collect the scraps. In Exodus 16:19 refereeing to the scraps, Moses says to the people, “let no one leave any of it over until morning.
5. In the Gospel of John in Chapter 6:41 the Jews begin to complain about Jesus because he said he was the bread that came down from heaven and we are all familiar with the grumbling of the Israelites in the wilderness against Moses.
6. Finally, Moses was asked to provide for the people in the book of Exodus but now Jesus was the provider for his people.

St John, in highlighting these subtle comparisons and connections, is making just one point, Jesus is the New Moses and if the Jewish authorities really knew their scriptures (5:39) and they believed Moses, they would have believed Jesus for Moses wrote about Jesus (5:46)

Yet while the religious leaders could not see the truth, it was the people who saw the sign (6:14). They joined the dots and made the connections and remembered Moses who fed the people in the wilderness just as Jesus did. We are told in scripture that they began to say, “this indeed is the prophet who is to come into the world”. They wanted to take him by force and make him king. Sadly, while they stood ahead above in their recognition of who Jesus was, they were enamoured by the bread they ate and failed to see the meaning of the sign; that Jesus was greater than Moses and that he is God. Sadly, perhaps we too see only the signs in our life and fail to see the God behind our blessings.

So, while we have a clear understanding into the deeper theological meaning of what the Gospel of John intended to convey there is also something we can take away pastorally and practically. I want to focus on just one take away.

When faced with a challenge, Phillip and Andrew both threw their hands up in despair. They both say a PROBLEM. Philip does a mathematical calculation to arrive at the fact that even the six months of financial reserve tucked under their belt would barely buy each one a small piece of bread let alone where they would get it from. Andrew, while identifying a little boy with five barley loaves and two fish throw his hands up in despair. Philip and Andrew see a problem while Jesus sees a hungry crowd that needs to be fed.

Sadly, the Church too has come to respond to the poverty and hunger around us the same way as Philip and Andrew did; as a problem. Yet make no mistake, while we cannot eradicate world poverty, we can make a difference to one person’s life and that begins when we stop throwing our hand up while we sigh and rather lend our hands to bring about a smile.

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Faith

John’s resignation letter – Thursday,2nd Week of Easter – Acts 5:27-33/John 3:31-36

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/god-first/ a reflection taken from the Acts of the Apostles.

We do not know if Nicodemus saw the light or walked out into the darkness. We can safely assume that he was a follower of Christ because scripture makes know to us that he was at Jesus’ burial. With the Nicodemus discussion now behind him, Jesus walks into the Judean countryside. Scripture tells us the Jesus was baptizing people here. John was baptizing too though a distance away. There is a lesson for all of us in the ministry; God’s mission has place for all. It is co-operation and not competition that helps evangelization.

Scripture now tells us that a discussion regarding purification arose between a Jew and the disciples of John. We are not told what happened about the discussion but we are told that jealousy has set in. The disciples of John are miffed that their ‘congregation’ is thinning out to the new kid on the block. So, John the Baptist has to school his disciples whose hearts are set on earthly popularity and not the plan of the father. John is clear; he MUST decrease, Christ MUST increase!

John explained to his followers that he was like the best man at a wedding; he isn’t the bridegroom. He isn’t to be the focus of attention, but to supervise the bringing of two people together. In the Jewish wedding customs of that day, the friend of the bridegroom arranged many of the details of the wedding and brought the bride to the groom. Nevertheless, the friend of the bridegroom was never the focus of attention, and wanted it that way.

John is emphatic, you cannot usurp the plan of God or veer it in the course you want. Jesus was sent by God “from above” he is not a plan that was hatched on earth. Sending Jesus was God’s idea. The disciples of John who were filled with jealousy for Jesus and his disciples were operating with an earthly thoughts. John reminds his disciples that Jesus comes from heaven and is ABOVE ALL.

For John there is no gradual fading off. Most of us would like to gradually and slowly ease out of a post that is important and has a spot light on it. No one asks you to step down from a post that barely has a title or a typewriter. The fact is, when God sets his seal on any mission, it does not matter who on earth is in charge; God brings it to fulfilment. Yet we resist giving up posts of honour. We don’t want to give up sitting on chairs that bring us adulation and popularity. Our late Holy Father, Pope Benedict the XVI won the hearts of the world when he had the grace to just let go and let God be in charge. Sadly, that lesson has not seeped down to the rank and file of the Church; both clergy and laity.

Finally, John has another thought to share. The Son, Jesus, is the perfect image of the Father and shares generously with us what he has received from his Father. Life without end awaits all those who believe in the Son, who believe his words and accept them as their way of life. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life but must endure the wrath of God.”

Notice that one who believes “has” eternal life. Eternal life begins now with the response of faith. On the other hand we must not think that God takes vengeance on those who disobey Jesus. God can never be angry in our normal sense of the word. But rather, those who choose to go another way, the way of darkness and evil can only expect to meet death. They are the victims, not of God’s anger, but of their own determination to live in darkness. Let us remember that with God’s help, the choice is ours to make.

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Faith

Took our sin, gave us HIS son – Wednesday, 2nd Week of Easter – Acts 5:17-26/ John 3:16-21

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/jail-break/ based on the First reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles.

This text forms part of the discourse that Jesus has with Nicodemus. It begins with 3:1 and extends to 3:21. The Gospel text of today brings to a close this discourse between Jesus and Nicodemus. It is to Nicodemus that Jesus quotes these lines that have become the much loved central message of Christian life. “For God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

God did not just give us ‘a son’; if He did, our salvation would never have taken place. He gave us ‘His Son’ to be our Saviour with a clear mandate that believing in Him we would have eternal life. Not only is the Son given but His purpose is set clear. Just as the purpose of commanding Moses to erect a serpent on a pole was to save the people from death so also believing in Jesus, the world will have life and death will be defeated.

John 3: 16 is Jesus’ big announcement; that He came to save us all, at God’s bidding. All this happened because God loves the world. It is as if Jesus is saying, ‘I’m here because the God who loved you of old, still does. He sent me to tell you, to show you, to gather you up into life with him forever.’
But this saving action on the part of God also has a demand. We are called to believe in the Son’s name so that we may not be condemned. The love of God also demands that we walk in the light and not live as children of the darkness. In short, believing in Jesus must involve a change of heart; a movement from darkness to light.

As Christians, the question that crosses our mind is, can we really stay neutral in the midst of wrongdoing? Should we fight this rapidly growing darkness that threatens to constantly invade our life? For St John, belief in Jesus cannot be a neutral decision. A Christian is called to make a choice between believe and dis-believe, between the darkness and the light and between succumbing to evil and doing what is true.
In John chapter three, we encounter Nicodemus who seeks Jesus by night. On this occasion Nicodemus leaves the presence of Jesus but he is still in confusion and doubt. He will reappear in John 19:39 to help care for Jesus’ body. In time Nicodemus emerges from the darkness of doubt into the light. The ministry of Jesus greatly impacts his life to make a choice for the light.

So also the Samaritan woman in John chapter four, whose long conversation with Jesus ends in a tentative belief, yet far from the immoral life where she first began. Clearly there is a movement from darkness of moral sin into the light of Christ. Or consider the blind man healed in John chapter nine, whose move from darkness to light happens rather quickly in physiological terms, but more slowly in terms of identifying Jesus. Eventually he moves from sight to insight.

In all the three cases, the inner transformation may seems slow but it is heading into the right direction; into the light of Jesus. Easter is that time when we make a conscious decision to be “lifted up” from darkness and believe in the name of Jesus as our Saviour; a belief that is matched with a change of life. Often that movement may seem slow. The temptation is often to go back to the “flesh pots of Egypt” as the Israelites demanded of Moses. This is the challenge of Christian life.

So while John 3:16 may be romanticised by some Christians as a mere slogan to be plastered on every pillar and post, the demand of Christian living must be also found in verse twenty one. For thus says the Lord, “He who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God.”

Fr Warner D’Souza

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Faith

Seeking your truth or ‘the’ truth? Tuesday, 2nd Week of Easter – Acts 4:32-37/John 3:7b-15

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/common-ism-is-not-communism/ based on the first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles.

Nicodemus was a seeker but one who had his own preconceived ideas of salvation. For the Jews, their racial birth was the guarantee to enter into the Kingdom of God. For Jesus it was not enough to be born as a Jew by the flesh but to be born of water and the spirt; a spiritual rebirth.

Because you are a seeker it does not mean you are seeking the truth; you could be seeking your truth. We know that Nicodemus was present at the burial of Jesus but unlike the rest of the Sanhedrin that came to ensure that Jesus was put to death, Nicodemus came to give Jesus a Jewish burial. We do not know if this seeker was convinced of the truth of Jesus message or he remained a pious Jew, performing for Jesus the pious burial rights that should be accorded to a Jew.

What we do know is that Nicodemus was a man with questions. There is no evidence that the two questions he asks Jesus came from a stubborn heart or a conniving one that wanted to trap Jesus. Yet he has questions and both of them begin with How… How can a man be born again; how can these things be?

While the Gospels are not biographies that are chronologically arranged, the Gospel of John, in the text of today indicates that Jesus has already had some kind of run in with the Jewish establishment. When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, he confesses that Jesus has worked great ‘signs’; a word in the plural. Yet the Gospel of John has only told us of one sign so far, the sign at the wedding at Cana. One can safely assume that while John mentions seven signs in his Gospel, Jesus worked many more and it is to this that Nicodemus refers to.

What then can be safely assumed from today’s text, is that Jesus also ran into opposition with the Jews. He says, “we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony.” Clearly Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus about his rejection by the Jewish religious authorities who while ‘appreciating’ the signs clearly reject his claim to be the Son of Man (verse 13). Jesus accuses Nicodemus and his fellow-leaders of a lack of spiritual insight and a refusal to accept his testimony as coming directly from God: “If you do not believe when I tell you about earthly things, how are you to believe when I tell you about those of heaven?” It is this openness that Jesus is challenging Nicodemus to have.

Jesus now makes a bold and passionate prediction. When the Jews revolted against Moses and God in the desert, God sent serpents to bite them. This sting of death brought the Israelites to their senses and they confess their sin and repent. They plead of Moses to appeal to God. God tells Moses to fashion a bronze serpent so that the Israelites may look at it when they are bitten and thus be saved. Interestingly, God did not take away the snakes, he rather gave them a remedy for their pain. Now, Jesus boldly declares that the sting of sin will be taken away by his death on the cross. Jesus is the cure that forever endures and for those who believe, he offers eternal life.

Finally, the idea behind eternal life means much more than a long or never-ending life. Eternal life does not mean that this life goes on forever. Instead, eternal life also has the idea of a certain quality of life, of God’s kind of life. It is the kind of life enjoyed in eternity. That is what Easter invites us to embrace.

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A nocturnal visit – Monday, 2nd Week in Easter – Acts 4:23-31/ John 3:1-8

Read also https://www.pottypadre.com/be-bold-and-dont-fold-monday-2nd-week-in-easter-tide-acts-423-31/ based on the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles.

This week we have to brace ourselves for a discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus. Over the next four days, the Gospel of John will focus on chapter 3 in which Nicodemus encounters Jesus by night.

Who was Nicodemus? Nicodemus was a learned and a respectable man and a member of the Sanhedrin. John 3:10 tells us that he was a teacher of Israel and 3:1 tells us he was a leader of the Jews. We are told in the Gospel of John, the only Gospel to mention Nicodemus that he comes to see Jesus at night. It was Nicodemus who reminded the Sanhedrin that Jesus had the right to a trial. Together with St. Joseph of Arimathea, he prepared Jesus’ body and placed him in the tomb.

We are told that Nicodemus comes to Jesus at night and the first assumption that one is drawn to is that he was afraid of being seen publicly by the members of the Sanhedrin with Jesus or that this is merely a metaphorical way of describing his spiritual life; that he lived in the darkness of the truth and it is Christ who enlightens his mind. Whatever be the case, Nicodemus must be merited as a seeker for whatever the assumptions of Biblical scholarship may be, he is with Jesus, talking to him about matters relating to the faith.

While we will have to wait patiently over the next four days to listen to the entire discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus, the focus of today’s Gospel is a man who has a sincere heart. He is respectful, for he addressed Jesus as ‘Rabbi’ and acknowledges that Jesus has come from God, working great signs. Yet, here in lies the problem.

For Nicodemus, Jesus is a ‘man come from God’ or a ‘man of God.’ At best Nicodemus could have been calling Jesus a prophet who worked great signs with the blessing of God. He sees Jesus as a man of God not the Son of God and Jesus has to stop his words of praise to correct him.

Jesus has now the unpleasant but bounded task to address the truth of faith. This is an issue we face so often when we have to contradict the mistaken teachings of even clergymen. But fraternal correction is a duty when it comes to matters of the faith; political correctness must take a back seat.

In order for Nicodemus to see Jesus as the son of God he has to let go of his blinkers. The Messiah was sitting in his presence, yet Nicodemus was still clinging on to his racial identity as a Jew with the promises it held. To see Jesus as the Messiah one had to be born from above or as the Greek translation also could be interpreted; ‘born again.’ Taking this to a practical level, Jesus was asking Nicodemus to take his blinkers off so that he could see the truth of faith; these blinkers were adding to the darkness of the night and his understanding.

Nicodemus is confused. He understands Jesus as speaking literally. “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” Jesus now explains further. It is not that one has to reenter their mother’s womb but being born again is being open to water and the Spirit. This was hard for Nicodemus to understand.

It was taught widely among the Jews at that time that since they descended from Abraham, they were automatically assured of heaven. In fact, some Rabbis taught that Abraham stood watch at the gate of hell, just to make sure that none of his descendants accidentally wandered in there. For Jesus, what was born of the flesh is of the flesh but to enter the kingdom of God we need to born of water and the spirit. This is a clear reference to Christian baptism. Flesh only produces flesh (as in natural birth) but it is a spiritual birth that we should seek for that merits us the kingdom of heaven.

Once we are reborn in the Spirit, we let ourselves be led to where God wishes. In explaining our spiritual birth to Nicodemus, Jesus said “the wind blows where it will. You hear the sound it makes but you do not know where it comes from, or where it goes.” The ‘wind’, ‘breath’ of the Holy Spirit is the sole Guide for our lives. He brings about our renewal in his own way. The word for “wind” here is a word which also means “breath” and “spirit”

For Nicodemus this must have been a difficult moment. He was being challenged to let go of his traditional Jewish ideas of salvation. Unless Nicodemus allowed God to change his whole way of being in the world, he would not be able to perceive God at work in him.

Tomorrow, the debate continues…..

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