Knowing and Being of the Truth
The Fifth Sunday of Lent (Passion Sunday)
9 March, AD 2008
TEXT: St. John 8:46-59 and Hebrews 9:11-15
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
“Jesus said, ‘Which of you convicts me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. . . If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say that he is your God: yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you; but I know him, and keep his sayings. Verily, verily I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” (St. John 8:46, 51, and 54).
Today is Passion Sunday – the beginning of the short, yet intense season of Passiontide and the beginning of the end for Jesus. From now on, the Jewish religious authority will plot and plan Jesus’ death; for in their opinion, He has shattered their precious status quo and threatens their precarious relationship with Rome. And most assuredly, as Caiaphas the High Priest later points out, it is better that one man die for the Jewish nation than to have the whole nation perish by the hand of Rome. A truer word than that seems never to have been spoken, yet the motives behind that word were anything but God-inspired.
Where the Gospel places us this morning is in the middle of an antagonistic confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish religious authority. There are two instances in the Gospels where Jesus confronts the world with the Truth. Once, before Pilate who asks Jesus, “What is Truth?” And the other here before the Jewish religious authority – who for their spiritual blindness cannot recognize the Truth as He stands before them, either.
In the few verses before we are thrust into this scene with its high level of drama, Jesus has been speaking to the religious authority about Truth and His mission to the world. The Jews staunchly say that they have God as their Father and Jesus says that if God were really their Father, they would love Him because He comes from God. Jesus then sort of baits them and asks, “Why do you not understand what I am saying?” And then He immediately answers His own question for them – “The reason is that you are unable to hear my word. You belong to your father, the devil, and it is the evil desires of your father that you wish to do. He never took his stand in the truth, because the truth is not in him. Therefore, because I speak the truth, you do not believe in me.” The Jewish religious authority is between a rock and a hard place. Without knowing it – or perhaps some of them did, they were in a life and death struggle; the death of self or the death of their eternal life. They are either struggling against their egos, which try to edge God, remember, with God’s help OR they are struggling against God with their own egos, which, unfortunately, is the case. They can’t convict Jesus of any sin because He is the only One without sin, yet they can’t believe in Him, either, because to do so would turn their lives and their religio-political system on its head. So, they do the only thing they can do – trump up charges against Jesus; accusing Him of what they themselves are guilty. And then seeing the only other possible way out of this struggle, they create an upheaval of vehement violence against Jesus, taking up stones and trying to kill Him, there, on the spot; much like a child reacts by flinging a checkerboard down onto the floor in a fit of childish rage when he discovers he’s about to be beaten.
We only have to step back and scratch the surface to see what is going on in our own lives and observe how easy it would be for us to join that mob mentality had we been there, ourselves. St. Cyril of Alexandria called it ill-tempered foolishness and pointed out that while it was bad enough that they, the religious authority, didn’t believe Jesus’ words, they got others riled up and hindered them from believing in and entering the Truth as well – a double sin on their souls. St. John Chrysostom says this Scripture is always the “acid test” for those who would hear God’s Truth or not in their heart. Those who hear will obey. Those who cannot or will not will try to destroy and tear down – always. Finally, it is St. Gregory the Great who gives us a key to this Passion Sunday Gospel. He implores us in his Homilies on the Gospel of St. John to hear the words of Jesus in or with our heart! That is the way to hear the Truth of God speaking to you through the Holy Ghost. The Jews thought that the privilege inherent in being descendants of Abraham, read their racial purity, was a sufficient guarantee of participation in the eternal Kingdom of God which would be set up by the Messiah when He came. Jesus rejected that claim and told them that salvation is only available by way of three things; repentance (a purposeful turning away from sin), faith (an optimism rooted in God, Himself, that He is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do), and finally listening to and keeping God’s word. Likewise, that is Jesus’ message for us, too. It’s not enough for us to be spiritual descendents of Abraham either, although we are. It’s not enough in a Christian’s case, just to go to Church Sunday after Sunday and sit here, not really participating in the active listening for God’s Word to our heart. No. First we must actively pray for God to speak to us, speak to our heart through His Word and Sacrament and then hearing it to act upon it after repentance and by faith, which is the key to our entire spiritual journey; those three.
Finally, we have taken the long way ‘round this Gospel and have given you today a Word of repentance, faith, and obedience to God’s sayings in order to equip you for the personal struggle you will face or are facing now just like Jesus will face for the next two weeks. If you thought you were put upon before now, just wait. It’s going to get worse before it gets better, spiritually. Were you to read in the Missal all of the lessons for the next two weeks, you would pick up on Jesus’ preparation for the events of Holy Week and His fulfillment of the Father’s Will; along with the preparations of those who would have Jesus killed. Deep, dark undercurrents of evil, death, and hell are there. They don’t show their faces openly because they are not of the Truth, either. Only Jesus who is THE Truth is visible to the eyes of Faith. It’s no accident that the story immediately after our Gospel lesson this morning is of the man born blind to whom Jesus restores his sight. It’s ironic that on the one hand, Jesus passed out of the midst of those who wanted to kill Him who could see, though possessed by blindness, and the very next thing restores sight to the one who had not the natural ability to see. All of this to say, if you keep your vision focussed on JESUS and listen to His WORD with your heart, you will know and be of the TRUTH and HE will set
you free forever and ever.
And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this day both now and forever; world without end. Amen.
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