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Reading
John 7.1-2, 10, 25-30
Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near.
But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went, not publicly but as it were in secret.
Now some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, ‘Is not this the man whom they are trying to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, but they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from; but when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.’ Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple, ‘You know me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on my own. But the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.’ Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.
Reflection
Then they tried to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him, because his time had not yet come.
Every year, as we journey through Lent, we travel through the oft-read accounts of Jesus’ final days on earth knowing exactly how the story is going to end. We know that the hatred of the religious authorities will boil over and cause the fickle crowds to scream those terrible words: Crucify him! We know that Jesus will be subjected to a show trial before being humiliated and executed in one of the most sadistic ways possible.
Although the hatred of the religious hierarchy reached its terrible climax in the events of Good Friday we know, from the gospel narrative, that the whole of Jesus’ ministry was dogged with attempts to show him up as a charlatan. But … Jesus was no charlatan; there was nothing fraudulent about his words and actions. On the contrary, it was the Pharisees, the scribes, and all the other religious grandees who were the hypocrites, the ones who were living behind a veil of pretence.
In the third chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes we read of there being a time for every matter under heaven. Too often we make the mistake of being impatient. We live life in a rush, assuming that we either know or can control that which is yet to come. This arrogant self-sufficiency creates a barrier between ourselves and God. Rather than living as faithful disciples in the present … the here and now … we display a lack of trust in God by focusing on that which only God really knows.
As we know how the annual Lenten journey will end, so did Jesus. Jesus also knew that the impatience of his detractors could not get in the way of his delivery of the entirety of the message he was destined to bring into the world.
In today’s reading we are hearing a challenge. We are being challenged to slow down and trust in God … in the here and now. Despite our fallible certainty over matters of the future, we need to stop emulating Jesus’ critics and show that we trust God to be the only one who truly knows. Then … as we are waiting for God’s plan to unfold in all its divine glory we need to live as faithful disciples in this world, today!