Having read the Living Bread of Life Discourse (John 6:22-59) last week (Third Week of Paschaltide) and the Good Shepherd Discourse (John 10:1-18) from Sunday to Tuesday this week (Fourth Week of Paschaltide), we read John 12:44-50 on today, Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Paschaltide.
After reading and reflecting on various accounts on
how the disciples reacted and came to terms with the Resurrection, the
Paschaltide Gospel Readings bear Christological theme. In means that
Paschaltide which goes from Resurrection Sunday to Pentecost Sunday is to
reflect not only on the mystery of the Resurrection but who Christ really is.
This is how we prepare to receive the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, as Christ, who
had died and risen, is the Parakletos,
the Advocate, (1 John 2:1), and the Holy Spirit is another Parakletos, another Advocate, (John 14:16). So, this is time to
reflect on our Parakletos, the
Advocate, who has died and risen, to prepare to receive another Parakletos, another Advocate.
It is also important to note that Jesus always
speaks not only of the Father but also of us when he speaks of himself. In the
Living Bread of Life Discourse, Jesus implicated that he is the Living Bread of
Life to feed us with real food so that we may be resurrected and have eternal
life, as willed by the Father. In the Good Shepherd Discourse, it is in the
Father’s will that Jesus cares for us as the Good Shepherd even it means to lay
down his life so that we may have life in abundance and our path to eternal
life is not compromised. Again, this is all because of the Father’s will. It
is, indeed, the Father, who sent Jesus, His begotten and beloved Son, as the incarnated
Word in the human flesh of Jesus, to be with us as our Living Bread of Life to
live within us and as our Good Shepherd to protect us and feed us not with
grass but the Living Bread of Life, which is, in essence, both the Word and the
Holy Spirit (John 6:63) for eternal life. This way, as in the Father’s will,
Jesus the Son wants to live within us as we in him, just as the Father in him
and he in Him. The Father, who sent
Jesus, is in him, as he is in the Father, as the Father and Jesus are one (John
10:30). And, the Father sent Jesus the Christ to us to extend this the
Father-Son oneness to us. This is Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, who has
died and risen – who has been lifted up to save us for eternal life, according
to the will of the Father.
With this in mind, we continue to read and reflect
the rest of the Paschaltide Gospel Readings, including today’s.
Today’s Gospel Reading (John 12:44-50) is drawn from
Jesus’ dialogue with those who stubbornly refused to believe, following Jesus’ public
dialogue with crowd, shortly after he made the triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
on his death and resurrection and ascension (John 12:20-36). In Jerusalem, the tension
between Jesus and those who refused to believe grew more and more intense and
become intensely hostile to him, resulting in the Crucifixion.
Jesus knew that people would not believe without
signs (John 4:48). So, he performed seven great signs, according to John, and
these are from John 2 to 11, known as the Book of Signs. However, even after
performing these seven signs, there were people who did not believe and refused
to believe (John 12:37), as prophesized in Isaiah 6:9-10.
So, Jesus cried out:
Whoever
believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me
(John 12:44).
It means that refusing to recognize Jesus as the
Messiah (in Hebrew) (Christ in Greek) is also refusing to believe in God the
Father. It is because the Father and Jesus are one (John 10:30; cf. 10:38).
And Jesus added:
..whoever sees
me sees the one who sent me (John 12:45).
By the nature of the hypostatic union between the
Father and the Son, the sender and the one sent (John 10:30), even God the
Father is not visible to human eyes, believing in Jesus as His Son, the
Messiah, enables us to see Him. Believing means seeing in the eyes of faith.
Here, Jesus uses “blindness” as a metaphoric figure
of speech to imply disbelief or inability to see, as he did in John 9:39 to
rebuke the Pharisees, who attacked the man, whose inherent blindness was cured
by Jesus, because of his testimony to Jesus. This is why Jesus also cited
Isaiah 6:9-10 in John 12:40.
Then, Jesus used the sense of hearing to further
reiterate his message to those who do not believe:
And
if anyone hears my words and does not observe them, I do not condemn him, for I
did not come to condemn the world but to save the world. Whoever rejects me and
does not accept my words has something to judge him: the word that I spoke, it
will condemn him on the last day (John 12:47-48).
With this statement, Jesus reminds us that the
Father did not send him to condemn the world – to condemn us (John 3:17),
because God so loved the World, us (John 3:16) and is kind and rich in mercy
(Psalm 103:8). Because of this, even if you do not keep the words of Jesus, you
are not necessarily condemned, as long as you do not reject or refuse his
words. It suggests that Jesus remains hopeful for conversion of such people as
his words may prompt them to believe, as long as they hear (i.e. 2 Peter 3:9).
And, Jesus concluded his last public statement
directly addressed to those who refused to believe with these words:
Because
I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say
and speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. So what I say, I
say as the Father told me (John 12:49-50).
This statement reflects a very important
Christological aspect of Jesus in his relation to the Father, which is
hypostatic union (John 10:30; cf. 10:38). And it is that Jesus is all about the
Father, who sent him. All Jesus speaks and does are not out of his own will but
of the Father, who sent him to us. This includes laying down his life for us (John
10:17-18) on the Cross (Matthew 26:39//Mark 14:36//Luke 22:42).
In fact, Jesus’ words in John 12:47-50 reflect what
he said during the Living Bread of Life Discourse:
Everything
that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who
comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will
of the one who sent me (John 6:37-38).
We are celebrating the Resurrection of the Son of God, sent by God the Father, who is in the hypostatic union with him, until Pentecost Sunday. He died as the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for us (John 10:11,14) , as well as the grain of wheat to fall in order to yield abundant harvest (John 12:24). And, he has risen – not only being lifted up on the Cross to die but also being lifted up from his tomb – listed up from the dead to draw us to him (John 12:32-33) so that we may be one body with Christ (1 Corinthians 12-28), one flock with one shepherd (John 10:16b). Being one with Jesus as one body, one flock, also means to be one with the Father (John 17:21), as he and the Father, who sent him, are one (John 10:30), as He in him and he in Him (John 10:38).
Upon Pentecost, we are to be sent out, filled with
and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit is another Parakletos (John 14:16), it means that
we Jesus, the Parakletos (1 John 2:1),
is in us and drives us from within so that we can expand the work of Jesus (John
14:12), which is the work of the Father in the world (John 5:17).
In today’s First Reading (Acts 12:24-13:5a), we see
how the work of Jesus grew greater and greater, as the Church’s pastoral
ministry, was about to be carried out on mission by Saul (Paul) and his
partner, Barnabas, with his cousin, Mark, filled and driven by the Holy Spirit.
This way, Christ the light (John 8:12; 12:46a), can shine on another sheep to
be brought into one flock of the Good Shepherd (John 10:16).
It is to extend the Good News of the salvation
further into the world, which has been plagued with the darkness of sin ever since
the fall of Adam and Eve, with the hope that more people will listen to and
learn from God to be drawn to Christ (John 6:45), and it also means to be drawn
to the Father (John 6:44).
Do you listen to the Good Shepherd’s words everyday?
He speaks to us daily through the Gospel Reading of the day, and more. And, as we go on our mission, we help others
listen and understand the Word of God in the Sacred Scripture, as Philip did to
the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-40).
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