Friday, Fourth Week of Lent

The early church saw in today’s first reading from the Book of Wisdom a prophecy of Jesus’ passion and death. A group of people are infuriated by a virtuous person who calls himself a son of the Lord and whose way of life is not like other people’s way. They say among themselves, ‘Let us condemn him to a shameful death’ and let us see if God will rescue him and look after him, as he claims God will do. They are going to put this man’s trust in God to the test. It is easy to see how the early Christians saw here a prefiguring of Jesus’ passion and death. A group of powerful people were infuriated by Jesus’ message and way of life, and his claim to be the Son of God. They were determine to condemn him to a shameful death and as he hung dying from a Roman cross they mocked his trusting faith in God his Father, who seemed to have abandoned him. In the gospel reading, these enemies of Jesus are beginning to organize themselves. They think they know where Jesus is from, a little village in Northern Galilee called Nazareth. However, Jesus goes on to declare where he is really from, ‘I have not come of myself; no, there is one who sent me and I really come from him’. Jesus claims to come from God, and because he comes from God he knows God, perhaps those opposed to him do not know God. Because of these words Jesus spoke, the gospel reading tells us that his enemies wanted to arrest him there and then, but his time had not yet come. People thought they knew Jesus, who he was and where he was from. Yet, there was so much more to Jesus than they realized. There is always more to Jesus than any of us realizes. We are always on a journey of discovery in his regard, and it is always a worthwhile journey.