Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

Lectionary: 255

If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

The tenth chapter of Saint John repeats many of the arguments of the fifth chapter. Again we hear of the Lord's work which is the work of his Father. Again we hear of the credentials which he presents and his opponents refuse to accept. 

But the tenth chapter is more intense as the crisis of God's presence in Jesus approaches its climax. Something must give; a man must die to satisfy his enemies. The next and final chapter of John's Book of Signs will tell us of Lazarus called from the grave and its consequence -- the decision to have Jesus crucified, if necessary during the Pasch. 

The death of the Lord should put an end to his announcement that the Kingdom of God is near. We should hear nothing more of that. We should be left forever in the hopelessness of a dead religion which has nothing to say to powerful persons, regardless of their burden upon society and their arbitrary, sanctimonious, cruel regime.

But truth does not die so easily. It is not an idle something in an alternate reality without import or meaning. More than weighing upon our consciousness, it forces itself upon us, intruding and sabotaging the corrupt structures humans build against it. 

Nor does it meekly submit to evil. If this or that agent of truth is silenced, others will speak up. If all are suppressed, it will erupt from the divisions within evil itself -- that kingdom which must turn against itself. For the wicked can only form alliances to oppose the truth. Witness the Sanhedrin conspiring with Pontius Pilate and Herod. (Politics makes strange bedfellows.) But when they appear victorious they must turn upon one another, like the armies who marched against Jerusalem when Jehoshaphat was king. 

Our Gospels tell us that evil will have its day. The enemies of God can only leave the world in hopeless darkness. The faithful seem to have no reasonable foundation for their hope or faith. They often have only their love for one another to keep them together. 

However, the Word of the Lord endures. He will meet us on the way -- out of town if necessary -- to give us a sure sign and everlasting proof of his mercy.