Understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father

 

The Scripture readings for this blog can be found at Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent | USCCB

As we get closer to Holy Week and the Passion and Death of Jesus on Good Friday, we hear in today’s gospel how the Jews were still having problems accepting and believing that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, the Messiah. A few verses earlier in this 10^th chapter of St. John, the Jews ask Jesus, “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” All throughout the gospel of St. John, Jesus was very clear and plain about being the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

But the Jews were having a hard time wrapping their mind around the fact that Jesus was not only Messiah, but also God. They truly thought Jesus was blaspheming. As a result, they were ready to stone him to death. They said, “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God.”

All throughout the gospels, we hear of the works that Jesus performed: the healings, the miracles, and then the eventual resurrection from the dead after being so brutally killed on the cross. We have the grace by what we read in the gospels to know and believe that Jesus is really indeed the Messiah, True God and True Man.

The obstacle for the Jews at the time was that they saw only the physical body of Jesus and were unable to look beyond his body to see that Jesus was also true God. He showed them through the works that he did that he was indeed the Messiah and God, but they allowed their minds to be blocked by the fact that they only saw Jesus, the Man.

If there are times when we ourselves have doubts that Jesus is indeed true God and true man let us move beyond these doubts and ask the Lord for the gift of faith to know Jesus Christ as he truly is: Messiah and God. Let us pray to Jesus, “Lord, we believe, help our unbelief.”