DAILY GOSPEL AND COMMENTARY: “I AM HE (v.28)” Jn 8:21–30.
TUESDAY, 5TH WEEK OF LENT Jn 8:21–30
Jesus said to the Pharisees: “I am going away and you will look for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “He is not going to kill himself, is he, because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?” He said to them, “You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world. That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.” So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning. I have much to say about you in condemnation. But the one who sent me is true, and what I heard from him I tell the world.” They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father. So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me. The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him.” Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
GOSPEL COMMENTARY
So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am, and that I do nothing on my own,
Drawing on the day’s first Reading from the Book of Numbers, Pope Francis explained that “in the desert the Lord commanded Moses to make a serpent and to set on a pole and then ‘everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live’”.
What is the serpent?, the Pope asked. “The serpent is the sign for sin. We think of the Book of Genesis: it was the serpent that seduced Eve, that suggested that she sin”. And God commands [Moses] to lift up the serpent, that is sin, as a flag of victory. It is something that one “cannot understand well if one does not understand what Jesus said in the Gospel. Jesus says to the Jews: ‘When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me’”.Lifting up the symbol of their sin and transforming it into an instrument of salvation therefore represents the redemption which comes from Christ lifted up on the Cross.
“Christianity,” the Pope continued, “is not a philosophical doctrine, it is not a programme of life that enables one to be well formed and to make peace. These are its consequences. Christianity is a person, a person lifted up on the Cross. A person who emptied himself to save us. He took on sin. And so just as in the desert sin was lifted up, here God made man was lifted up for us. And all of our sins were there”. Therefore, Pope Francis explained, “one cannot understand Christianity without understanding this profound humiliation of the Son of God, who humbled himself and made himself a servant unto death on the Cross. To serve”.
For if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins.” So they said to him, “Who are you?” … But the one who sent me is true, and what I heard from him I tell the world.” They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father. So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am…
Dear brethren in Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ told the Pharisees thrice: “you will die in your sin” because they persisted in their rejection of Jesus and considered themselves self-reliant. Jesus has openly declared that “I am he,” ” I say only what the Father taught me,” “the one who sent me is with me,”thereby revealing that he is God. Only those who believe in his divinity could be saved.
Many people in our own days ask the same question: “‘Who are you?’… Let us then take advantage to say a profound act of faith:
“Lord, I believe that you are the Son of God, intimately united with the Father who said ‘I AM WHO AM’. I firmly believe that you are “the Son of God made man… the Messiah we were expecting: … the Saviour of the world, the Master of our lives; … the Shepherd that guides men to their pastures in time, to their destinies beyond time… the joy of the world; … the image of the invisible God; …the way, the truth and the life; … the interior friend; … the One who knows us even from afar; … the One who can forgive us, console, cure, even raise from the dead; and … the One who will return, the judge of one and all, in the fullness of his glory and our eternal happiness” (Paul VI, General Audience, 11 December 1974).
