"BELIEVE BY THE WORKS I DO"
Not only did He preach the goodness and love of His Father for all, but
Jesus revealed that goodness and love by His actions in His own humanity.
As Holy Week draws
near, opposition to Jesus' ministry intensifies. We just read in the Gospel of
John, "If I do not perform My Father's works, do not believe Me; but if I
perform them, even if you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may
realize and understand that the Father is in Me and I am in the Father"
(Jn 10:37-38).
One of the most
amazing things about the life of Jesus is the fact that so many people rejected
Him. Jesus is the personification of all that is good and holy and desirable,
and He wishes to draw all people to Himself, to make them perfectly and
eternally happy. Not only did He preach the goodness and love of His Father for
all, but Jesus revealed that goodness and love by His actions in His own
humanity. When some wanted to stone Him, He protested, "Many good deeds
have I shown you from the Father. For which of these do you stone Me" (Jn
10:32)? They then accused Him of blasphemy because He had made Himself equal to
God, and yet He was speaking the truth. His claim to be divine was confirmed by
signs and miracles.
The rejection that
Jesus suffered was nothing new. Jeremiah, in today's first reading, was
likewise rejected even though he did nothing but speak the truth in God's name.
When he warned the people about the destruction of Jerusalem and their need for
repentance, he was arrested, beaten, and put into prison. It is amazing that
Jesus, as well as Jeremiah and other prophets in Israel, were rejected by so
many people when they spoke the truth. Why were they rejected? There are many
complicated reasons, but one reason is that sometimes the truth can hurt. When
the truth makes us face our own failures and inadequacies, the easiest way to
escape our responsibilities and the need to change is to ignore or deny the truth.
The truth can be
painful, even the truth preached by Jesus. The truth of Jesus demands change,
it requires that we accept our suffering and self-denial, and that we abandon
our selfishness in order to be generous in our love and service of others. Let
us pray that we will never take the easy way out by rejecting Jesus and His
truth. When we receive the Eucharist, it is our pledge of salvation and our
commission to spread the Good News!