WEDNESDAY, FOURTH WEEK OF LENT
Is 49: 8-15; Ps 145: 8-9, 13-14, 17-18; Jn 5: 17-30
A SIGN OF CONTRADICTION
Today’s readings highlight the general theme of Lent, ‘Repent and believe’. To believe means to accept Jesus Christ and his saving Gospel. Prophet Isaiah promises everything good to those who will turn to God and be saved. He invites the heavens and the earth and the mountains to exult because God consoles his people and has pity on those in distress. Saint Paul states that God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can go the Father except through him. Isaiah speaks of the coming of the Saviour in obscure form when he speaks of “(The day of Salvation)”, (release to prisoners), (light in the darkness), (satisfying their hunger and thirst),(leading to springs of waters).
All these terms refer to Jesus Christ and his saving mission. He is the son of God, longed and waited for the Just and Holy ones, when he comes in time is not received by his own. He the son of man. Becomes a sign of contradiction. He faces rejection, opposition, persecution, mockery, ridicule and scorn and ultimately cruel torture and death. In the face of all this he preaches the saving word and courageously calls God his father, for which the Jesus seek to stone him. Well, what has the Lord not done to save the Lost sheep i.e. Humanity. Saint Augustine states that God who created us without our consent will not save us without our consent.
The Gospel invites us to reflect on the reality of Heaven and hell and the Final judgment wherein the Judge will place some on his left and others on the right. The Man proclaimed by Pilate as “Behold the Man” and the sign of contradiction as foretold by Simeon will himself be the Judge. Lord, grant that we may accept the suffering and trials of this life, which can gain us merit for eternity.
Response: The Lord is kind and full of compassion.
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