Who Are You?
Homily for the Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Lent
April 9, 2025
Homily for the Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Lent
April 9, 2025
Homily for Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Lent
Daniel 3:14-20, 24-28
John 8:31-49
By the fifth week of Lent,our daily lectionary seems to be grasping at straws to find readings appropriate to this week before Holy Week. On the one hand, we have a reading from the book of Daniel, whose first chapters might be described as a “graphic novel” – part super-hero thriller, with Daniel and his friends the super-heroes; and part comic book, with cartoon elements such as… King Nebuchadnezzar. And on the other hand, we have a passage from John chapter 8 which seems to have been chosen because it mentions that they were looking for a way to kill Jesus.
But on a deeper level both passages ask the question, “What,” or “Whom, do you worship?” Daniel asks the question overtly with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refusing to bow to the king’s statue. John, on the other hand, asks the question more subtly.
On one level John chapters 7and 8 (from which tonight’s passage comes) is about identity, speaking to the question first posed in John’s opening chapter when, “The Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem,” to ask John, “Who are you?” In chapters 7 and 8, John speaks to this question, “Who are you?” first in regards to Jesus, who is described as:
· “A good man”(7:12)
· While “Others were saying, ‘No, he is deceiving the crowd’” (7:13)
· Or again: “Is this not the man whom they are trying to kill?” (7:25)
· And again: “Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Messiah?” (7:26)
· “This is really the prophet,” some said, while, “Others said, ‘This is the Messiah.’”(7:40-41)
In chapter 7 the crowd wrestles with the question, “Who are you?” in regards to Jesus.
And then, in today’s passage(in chapter 8) John speaks to the question, “Who are you?” in regards to Jesus’ followers:
· “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples,” Jesus said, “and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
· But “They answered, ‘We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been slaves to anyone.’”
· Jesus said, “I declare to you what I have heard in the Father’s presence.”
· “They answered him, ‘[But] Abraham is our father.’”
· “Jesus said to them, ‘If you are Abraham’s children, you would do what Abraham did, but now you are trying to kill me…’”
By these exchanges, John speaks to the question, “Who are you?” in regards to Jesus’ followers.
Beneath these questions of identity, the conversation in tonight’s lesson turns on what, or whom, they worship:
They said to him, “We are not illegitimate children. We have one father, God himself.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God, and now I am here.”
By these lines John in effect asks: “Will they believe in him? Will they become Jesus’ disciples? Will they worship him?”
Jesus’ words in tonight’s Gospel are meant, not so much for those in the Gospel, as they are meant for us. Is there a place within us for Jesus’ word? Will we truly be disciples, and will we worship him and him alone?
These questions are important as we draw near to Holy Week, for perhaps the most difficult aspect of being Jesus’ disciple is accompanying him during his Passion. It is not easy to worship a God who “was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross” (BCP, p 276). And yet, to truly worship him (and not, say, money, or wealth or power) [to truly worship him] is to commit to finding life in the cross. May God give us grace to find life in Jesus’ cross!
I will leave us with the Collect from this Sunday’s liturgy:
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
