Friday 11 April 2025
St Stanislaus
Jeremiah 20:10-13. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice – Ps 17(18):2-7. John 10:31-42.
Speaking the truth
We live in a time when the Draculas of social media are always on the lookout for blood, ready to pounce and cancel.
Jeremiah knew the feeling: even ‘all my close friends . . . are waiting for me to stumble . . .’ In Jesus’ day, stoning was the contemporary form of cancelling a person rather permanently. In today’s Gospel, Jesus has crossed the line in the biggest way possible – blasphemy – and faces stoning. We can barely appreciate how sacred, how completely untouchable was the name of God, and yet here was this ‘man’ claiming to be the divinity. (In Australian terms, it would be like Warnie claiming to be Bradman.)
Jesus doesn’t back off. He goes for the jugular, so to speak: he leads his opponents on a dance of words, quoting Psalm 82:6-7, about men being gods and sons of God, leading to him being God’s Son. Jesus often said the ‘wrong’ thing – it’s called the truth.
Email this Print This Page
