Posted by Fifth Sunday in Lent/Passion Sunday
Today is the Fifth Sunday in Lent, commonly called Passion Sunday because it leads us into the most solemn part of Lent and the final approach to Holy Week. In today’s Gospel from St. John we hear of Jesus’ final challenge to the Jewish nation at the Feast of Tabernacles, a few months before the Passover at which he met his death. Jesus had proclaimed himself the water of life and light of the world and he had been challenged to authenticate his claim. His contemporaries believed that their descent from Abraham, the founding father of the Jewish nation, was a sign of God’s favour on them. But Jesus said that if they were of the true seed of Abraham they should act as Abraham acted. In this he followed on from the message of John the Baptist who had said that it was not enough for Israel to say “We have Abraham as our father”, for God was able from the stones of the wilderness to raise up children of Abraham. Jesus reiterated this point and went further in claiming that the day that Abraham (who had received the promise that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed) looked forward to (in other words the time of salvation) had now come. “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad”. Indeed, he was a greater than Abraham, for “Before Abraham was, I AM”. In other words, the authority with which he speaks is not simply that of a prophet like John the Baptist, but that of the divine Word that transcends time and space and through whom all things were made. “He was the Word and spake it”. They took up stones against him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
What astonished Jesus’ contemporaries was the authority with which he acted. He went around not simply talking about God, but claiming to be his representative on earth, acting and speaking for him. He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes (Matthew 7:29). “What manner of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him” (Matthew 8:27). “Never man spake like this man” (John 7:46). Many saw him as a prophet, like one of the old prophets. Yet, as many also saw, his own self claim was greater than that of a prophet. The prophets had looked forward to the age of the new covenant when sins would be forgiven. Jesus proclaimed that this age was being inaugurated in his own person and ministry. The prophets prefaced their utterances with “Thus saith the Lord”, but Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, but I say to you”. He thus said in his own name what the Law of Moses said in God’s name. It was not so much the content of the teaching (though many found that scandalous enough) but the authority with which Jesus spoke. “Think not that I am come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfil” (Matthew 5:17). He claimed to be the full, final and definitive revealer of God’s will. In his coming the Kingdom of God is made present. He says that man’s attitude to him will determine God’s attitude to them on the last day. He proclaims rest for the weary and heavy laden, and that he alone truly knows the Father and that the Father knows him (Matthew 11:27-30).
Jesus was condemned for blasphemy, for making himself equal with God. Jesus replied that he did not claim anything for himself on his own authority, but everything for what the Father was accomplishing through him. He and the Father are one, utterly identified, for they are one in action, but not identical, for the Father is Father and not Son. “The Son can do nothing by himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things that he himself doeth… He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father that sent him” (John 5: 19-23). To have met him is to have been met and judged by God. To have seen him is to have seen the Father (John 14:9).
Jesus’ self claim challenged his contemporaries and it challenges us today. To reject it is to say that Jesus was a false prophet and blasphemer, who claimed an authority that he did not rightly have. To accept it is to acknowledge that Jesus is indeed who he said he was, the only begotten Son of the Father who came to bring forgiveness in his own words and mighty works, but above all in his saving death. “This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matthew 26:28).
He is the true high priest, as the Epistle to the Hebrews calls him, who achieves what the high priest under the old covenant on the Day of Atonement could not achieve, namely to redeem the human race from sin and death. On the Day of Atonement the High Priest entered into the Holy of Holies in the temple and offered sacrifice first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people. But Christ, being an High priest of good things to come, by a better and more perfect tabernacle, that is not of this building, offered the one thing that could atone for human sin, the gift of himself. He is both Priest and Victim, who made the perfect sacrifice of himself once for all, and now ever lives at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us. In the life and liturgy of the Church, we are enabled to participate in this heavenly liturgy.
In the words of William Bright’s great hymn,
“Once, only once, and once for all,
His precious life he gave;
Before the Cross in faith we fall,
And own it strong to save.
One offering, single and complete,
With lips and hearts we say;
And what he never can repeat
He shows forth day by day.
For as the priest of Aaron’s line
Within the holiest stood,
And sprinkled all the mercy shrine
With sacrificial blood;
So he, who once atonement wrought,
Our Priest of endless power,
Presents himself for those he bought
In that dark noontide hour.
His Manhood pleads where now it lives
On heaven’s eternal throne,
And where in mystic rite he gives
Its presence to his own.
And so we show thy death, O Lord,
Till thou again appear,
And feel, when we approach thy board,
We have an altar here.