Scripture to Feed Us
Homily for the Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Lent
April 2, 2025
Homily for the Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Lent
April 2, 2025
Homily for Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Lent
John 5:19-29
Augustine one said that God gives us easy scriptures to keep us from starving, and God gives us difficult scriptures to keep us from getting bored. The Gospel lesson we just heard is one of the latter, given to keep us from getting bored.
John in tonight’s passage seems to be saying in regards to Jesus and the Father, “Monkey see, monkey do.” John writes:
The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.
Many point to tonight’s passage and note how in John, Jesus’ divinity shines through. But there is more in tonight’s passage than a claim of Jesus’ divinity. To get at that“more,” it helps to keep in mind two things: 1) the Hebrew scriptures, and 2) the Hebrew liturgical calendar.
First, the Hebrew scriptures. Just as in the “stretto” section of a fugue a composer will gather up all the subjects and counter subjects of the fugue and combine them into one glorious ending, so does John in his Gospel gather up themes from the Hebrew scriptures into his Gospel. In tonight’s passage, for example, are themes from
· The creation story – “The Son gives life to whomever he wishes”
· The Exodus –“Anyone who hears my word and believes… has passed from death to life.”
· Ezekiel’s “Dry Bones” (Ez 37) – “The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”
To better understand John, it helps to keep in mind the Hebrew scriptures.
Second, to better understand John, it helps to keep in mind the Hebrew liturgical calendar. Throughout his Gospel John mentions feast days. For example:
- in chapter 2, the Passover (2:13)
- in chapter 5, the Feast of Weeks (5:1)
- in chapter 7, Tabernacles
- in chapter 10, Hanukkah(10:22)
- And so forth…
The pre-eminent feast around which John organizes his Gospel is the Passover, with Jesus himself being both the priest making Atonement and also the Passover “lamb” being sacrificed.
According to Jewish understanding, in the Atonement God re-creates the world, and we start afresh,sinless, like Adam and Eve in Eden. And throughout John, Jesus as the high priest slowly makes his way through the Temple, as it were, toward the Holy of Holies and his final sacrifice of atonement: “I am the bread of life,”Jesus says (6:35) , as he walks past the Table of Showbread; “I am the light of the world,” he says (8:12), as he walks past the lampstand; and when Mary poured a pound of costly perfume over his feet, “the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume” (12:3), as Jesus walked past the altar of incense into the Holy of Holies.
Given John’s deep connection to the Hebrew scriptures, given the context of the Hebrew festivals in which John writes… When in tonight’s Gospel Jesus says, “The Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing;” and when in tonight’s Gospel Jesus says, “Anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life,” [when in tonight’s Gospel Jesus says these things,] we can imagine that, just as God through the rites of the high priest on the Feast of Atonement atones for the sins of the people of Israel, so does Jesus – who does nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing – [so does Jesus] now atone for our sins, so does Jesus now create the world anew, so does Jesus “give life to whomever he wishes.”
I’m sure there is still more in tonight’s passage, a passage that may or may not feed us, but certainly keeps us from getting bored. And I invite you in the next day or so to take some time with tonight’s passage, John chapter 5, verses 19-29. Perhaps you will find, as I have found, that the passages for which we must work the most are in the end the passages that give us the most satisfaction, that not only sate our immediate hunger, but that also give us the long-term sustenance we need for the journey.
