A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. This is a continuation of lord's discourse to the Jews. Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, if you live according to my teaching, you are truly my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. But notice, it's not a matter of faith alone.
It's a matter of living the faith. Notice that. Luther to the contrary, not withstanding. And then our what was their reaction to this? We, they said, are descendants of Abraham.
Never have we been slaves to anybody. That, of course, was not true. What do you mean by saying, you will be free? Jesus replied, I give you my assurance. Everyone who lives in sin is the slave of sin.
No slave has a permanent place in the family, but the son has a place there forever. That is why if the sun frees you, you will really be free. I realized you are of Abraham's stock. Nonetheless, you are trying to kill me because my words find no hearing among you. I tell you what I have seen in the father's presence.
You do what you have heard from your father. They retorted. Our father is Abraham. Jesus replied, if you were Abraham's children, you would be following Abraham's example. The fact is, you are trying to kill me.
A man who has told you the truth which I have heard from god. Abraham did nothing like that. Indeed, you are doing your father's works. They cried out, we are no illegitimate breed. We have but one father and that is god himself.
Jesus answered, were god your father, you would love me for I came forth from god and I'm here. I did not come of my own will. It was he who sent me and this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. During the last few days, I've been reading some of Cardinal Newman's sermons for this time of the year and he has one there that I was reading yesterday about Palm Sunday.
The thought that he wants to drive home to his hearers, and he was preaching this in Saint Mary's before he became well, I I was gonna say before he became a Catholic, but that is not correct. Newman always wanted to be a Catholic. So but this was before he had made his submission to Rome, as we said. Anyway, his one thought is this in appealing to his congregation. Take your thoughts off of the world and try to concentrate on Good Friday.
That's not easily done. And you'd say, Well, is that all we have to do? Well, just try it. Just try it and see how you come out. First of all, the negative side.
Pulling yourself away a bit from all these things which are your responsibility, and what you have to be engaged in, and what you have to think about. It's your job. It's your responsibility. It's your obligation before God Almighty. It's your opus dei, your the work of the Lord.
So let's get that perfectly straight. But when you're building a house, it's very easy to get so immersed in the house that you forget why you're building it. It's so easy to get mixed up in liturgy that you forget why you have a liturgy at all. It's so easy to get mixed up in all the all the trappings, because that's all they are, of worship and forget God. It's easily done.
You don't have to work it out at all. So we're not talking here without withdrawing from sin. What Newman is asking us to do or his congregation in the last part of the nineteenth century was to withdraw, as he said, to restrain your thoughts and then positively focus on Good Friday. What does it mean? What does Good Friday mean?
And he brings in one of his very favorite themes. At least, I think it's a favorite theme. And that is, why did it take place? Why? Why did God Almighty ever send his son and have to endure the suffering?
And Newman answers it in one word, it's a mystery. Because in the inevitably, if you admit there's a benevolent, all powerful, omnipotent God, you're going to have to say the same thing about suffering in general. And our holy father just said, well, in February, he brought out that magnificent letter of his on Christian suffering and I I referred to that a couple of Sundays ago. It's a magnificent document. But the thing is, it is a mystery.
And then Newman goes on to say that religion is a mystery, and it's not created for our comfort, and it's not for our self fulfillment. It's to give back to God what he has given me. You see, this runs countered among everything we're living in with today, and yet nobody can dispute the truth of it. That is to believe in God. Remember, the great thrust of socialism, and I don't care what kind, whether it's Christian or non Christian or or Karl Marx, it's the it's the focus on man.
And Dostoevsky says that's why it's all wrong because it separate it it it changes the focus from god to man, from heaven to earth, and we were not created to stay here. We go into eternity to the open grave, and this world is sir is the preface, it's the trial, it's the journey, it's the way, it's the preamble. That's all it is. That's the Christian view, at least. Of course, it's the Christian view, but it's not the Christian view of Marx.
It's not the view of a Feuerbach or those fellows. It's not the view of some of our so called liberal theologians who think that you've got to make this world a comfortable heaven on earth before you can send men to the eternal heaven. That includes women too. And so Newman is saying, draw back and go to Good Friday and put yourself yourself on on Calvary. Calvary.
He He doesn't doesn't say say things as crudely as I'm saying it. Takes him pages to say it. But this is a tremendous thing we have to do. And you say, God died. Now that's correct.
That is perfectly correct to say that because in Jesus Christ, there is only one person, and that person is divine, and that person has a dual nature. And it's true that he suffered only in that human nature. We all know that God can. As God can't suffer, he can't change. He's immobile.
But Jesus Christ can suffer, and Jesus Christ is the son of God. One person only. One person only. And that person was on the cross for me and for you. Why?
We can't answer that question. But the fact is it happened. That's the fact. And if you wanna ask how god loved us, look at the cross. Remember, he first loved us long before we ever thought of loving him.
And so this is my prayer this morning, that we go to Calvary, that we prepare our minds to be open to this. It's an incredible story. Unless you can get get that that it's staggering, it's unbelievable. Who can believe that God ever became man and went through what Christ went through? Who can believe?
And that will be your sentiment if you think about it. If we can get behind this all this fluff of words and and thoughts and concepts and phrases and actions which have become so familiar that they've lost meaning. What we have to do is to excite ourselves and to and to wake up to what we're saying. Do we believe what we say? Only we can only do it with the faith of Jesus Christ, and that's the subjective and the subject objective That it's our faith, but it has to come from Jesus Christ, truly the son of god and our savior.
In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.