Gospel of 20 March 2021
Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent
John 7:40-52
The Law does not allow us to pass judgement on a man without hearing him
Several people who had been listening to Jesus said, ‘Surely he must be the prophet’, and some said, ‘He is the Christ’, but others said, ‘Would the Christ be from Galilee? Does not scripture say that the Christ must be descended from David and come from the town of Bethlehem?’ So the people could not agree about him. Some would have liked to arrest him, but no one actually laid hands on him.
The police went back to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them, ‘Why haven’t you brought him?’ The police replied, ‘There has never been anybody who has spoken like him.’ ‘So’ the Pharisees answered ‘you have been led astray as well? Have any of the authorities believed in him? Any of the Pharisees? This rabble knows nothing about the Law – they are damned.’ One of them, Nicodemus – the same man who had come to Jesus earlier – said to them, ‘But surely the Law does not allow us to pass judgement on a man without giving him a hearing and discovering what he is about?’ To this they answered, ‘Are you a Galilean too? Go into the matter, and see for yourself: prophets do not come out of Galilee.’
Reflexion
You must be familiar with the saying, “think outside the box.” It means to think creatively, unconventionally and from a different perspective. Does this apply to our Christian faith? Many have argued so, making the case that we need to depart from the old ways of thinking and doing things in the Church, if the Church is to survive or remain relevant. But this is not what we are called to do. Christians are not called to innovation, we are called to imitation, to greater fidelity to Christ, who is our perfect model. What is not needed is attempting to reinvent the wheel, to make Christ into something more palatable to contemporary taste.
The problem with the Pharisees was that their thinking and reading of scriptures was boxed in, limited by deeply instilled prejudices and weighed down by their own sense of righteousness and rightness. It wasn’t because they lack innovation, but they lacked fidelity to the Word of God. Instead of conforming to the Word of God, they had chosen to shape and spin the Word of God to fit into their normative way of thinking and expectations.
To even consider peeking outside the box of their thinking would be too humiliating, it would demand nothing less than an admission that they could be wrong. And so, they refuse to acknowledge that their interpretation, being like any other interpretation, could just be an opinion, it does not necessarily have to be the truth.
Why couldn’t they accept that the Lord was the long awaited Messiah? Was it because our Lord did not fit the bill? The real truth was that the Pharisees in particular, and the Jews contemporary to Jesus, in general were unable to go beyond certain expectations which stemmed from their reading of scripture. They expected a political Messiah that would reestablish Israel’s independence and restore the legendary Davidic dynasty. This was the conclusion that they wanted, so every scriptural text and interpretation had to be bent to its fulfilment. So, the point is that Scripture was not mistaken in its prophecies, they were mistaken in their interpretation.
The failure of the Pharisees to recognise our Lord despite their knowledge and vast learning should be an important lesson for us. Let us not be so presumptuous to think that we have figured out the Lord perfectly and feel disappointed in Him when He doesn’t act according to our narrow timetable and agenda. Don’t be so arrogant to think that your box is so big that it can contain God. God is far bigger than your pitiable box. Not even the universe could contain Him. But a young Jewish girl who humbly submitted to His will would be allowed to be the container of the uncontainable, the mother of the One who has no beginning and no end. So before you proceed to pass judgment on God, give Him a hearing and I can assure you that if you do so with humility and docility, you will have much to discover, for nothing, absolutely nothing, can plunge the depths of His wisdom and knowledge.