Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Saving Authority

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 3.31.22 | Aux. Bishop R. Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Fourth Week of Lent

John 5:31-47

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus declares the source of his authoritative behavior.
Notably, the first hearers of Jesus were astonished by the authority of his speech.
This wasn’t simply because he spoke with conviction and enthusiasm; it was because he refused to play the game that every other rabbi played,
tracing his authority finally back to Moses. He went, as it were, over the head of Moses.

His listeners knew they were dealing with something qualitatively different than anything else
in their religious tradition or experience.
They were dealing with the prophet greater than Moses, whom Israel had long expected.

And Jesus had to be more than a mere prophet.
Why?
Because we all have been wounded, indeed our entire world compromised, by a battle that took place at a more fundamental level of existence.
The result is the devastation of sin, which we all know too well. Who alone could possibly take it on?
A merely human figure?

Hardly.
What is required is the power and authority of the Creator himself, intent on remaking
and saving his world, binding up its wounds and setting it right.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Jesus said to the Jews:
“If I testify on my own behalf, my
testimony is not true.
But there is another who testifies
on my behalf,
and I know that the testimony he
gives on my behalf is true.
You sent emissaries to John, and he
to the truth.
I do not accept human testimony,
but I say this so that you may be saved.
He was a burning and shining lamp,
and for a while you were content to
rejoice in his light.
But I have testimony greater than John’s.
The works that the Father gave me to
accomplish,
these works that I perform testify
on my behalf
that the Father has sent me.
Moreover, the Father who sent me has
testified on my behalf.
But you have never heard his voice
nor seen his form,
and you do not have his word
remaining in you,
because you do not believe in the
one whom he has sent.
You search the Scriptures,
because you think you have eternal
life through them;
even they testify on my behalf.
But you do not want to come to me to
have life.

“I do not accept human praise;
moreover, I know that you do not
have the love of God in you.
I came in the name of my Father,
but you do not accept me;
yet if another comes in his own name, you will
accept him.
How can you believe, when you accept
praise from one another
and do not seek the praise that
comes from the only God?
Do not think that I will accuse you
before the Father:
the one who will accuse you is Moses,
in whom you have placed your hope.
For if you had believed Moses,
you would have believed me,
because he wrote about me.
But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?+++