A reading from the book of Wisdom (2:1, 12-22)
The godless say:
‘Let us lay traps for the righteous
who annoys us and opposes our way of life,
reproaches us for our sins against the Law
and broadcasts our sins against our upbringing.
Such a person claims to have knowledge of God,
claims to be a child of the Lord,
a reproof to our way of thinking –
the very sight weighs us down!
Such a life is abnormal!
Such ways are exclusive!
He thinks we are damaged goods
and avoids us like filth.
Blessing he finds in the death of the righteous
and he boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if what he says is true
and test him to see what end he will have.
For if the righteous is the son of God,
God will hold him fast and rescue him from the grasp of his enemies.
We’ll test him with insult and torture,
find out just how gentle he is and test out that patience of his.
We’ll condemn him to a shameful death;
he’ll be looked after – he thinks!’
This is how they reasoned but they were misled,
for their wickedness made them blind.
They knew not the secrets of God,
had no hope of the reward of holiness,
nor belief in the prize for innocence.
This poem from the book of Wisdom, a book which wonderfully blends Jewish thinking and Greek culture, contrasts the righteous with the godless. These latter plan to put the righteous one to the test (peirasmos). They are well aware what he thinks of them, and they know he is right. They resent his goodness and plan to insult and torture him. These words originate in a pagan environment, in which fidelity to the ancient faith and its values are a source of irritation. Once the speech of the godless ends the writer affirms that ‘their wickedness has made them blind’. Attacks on the innocent and the just punctuate the Scriptures, and include the Just One himself and his followers in the New Testament.
Psalm 34 (33) The just one trusts in God’s protection.
A reading from the holy gospel according to John (7:1-2, 10, 25-30)
After this Jesus went around in Galilee, for he did not wish to go around in Judaea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. The Jewish festival of Tabernacles was near. After his brothers had left for the festival, then he went up as well, not openly but in secret.
Meanwhile some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, ‘Is not this the man they are seeking to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities have recognised that he is the Messiah? Yet we know where this man is from, but when the Messiah comes no one will know where he is from.’
Then, as Jesus was teaching in the Temple, he cried out:
‘You know me and you know where I am from.
Yet I have not come of my own accord:
but he who sent me is true,
whom you do not know.
I know him because I am from him
and he sent me.’
So they sought to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come.
During this visit of Jesus to Jerusalem for the feast of Tabernacles we hear more explicitly about the plots to kill him and the disputes among the people about him. The discussion focuses on his place of origin. They know he is from Galilee, but the Messiah is not supposed to be from there, and his origins might be unknown. This leads in to a solemn speech of Jesus about his real origin from the Father, and his being ‘sent’ by the Father. The one who sends him is ‘true’. Though there is strong desire to arrest Jesus, his hour has not yet come. But it is approaching and the atmosphere becomes more and more menacing.
Note how effectively this evangelist evokes the looming danger for Jesus.
Pray for all those who live under threat and in danger of violence.