A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint John. Jesus moved about within Galilee. That's the province to the north up by the Sea Of Galilee. He had decided not to travel to Judea, that, of course, is in the far south, Jerusalem, because some of the Jews were looking for a chance to kill him. The Jewish feast of booths drew near, and once his brothers had gone up to the festival, Jesus himself went up, but as in secret and not for everybody to see him.
Now in Jerusalem, some of the people remarked, is this not the one they want to kill? Here he is speaking even in public, and they don't say even a word. Perhaps even the authorities have decided that this is, in fact, the messiah. Yet we know where this man is from. When the messiah comes, no one is supposed to know his origins.
At this, Jesus, who was teaching in the temple area, cried out, so you know me and you know my origins? The truth is I have not come of myself. I was sent by one who has the right to send, and him you do not know, but I know him because it is from him that I come. He sent me. At this, they tried to seize Jesus, but no one laid even a finger upon him because his hour had not yet come.
And this is the word of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. As you good people sit in those pews this morning in the year of our lord, 1987, April 3, your only reason for being here, I hope, there could be a lot of reasons, but I hope the dominant, the controlling, the urgent, the persuasive reason that you're in those views this morning at this mass is that you accept the fact that Jesus Christ lived, born of a virgin girl, and that that man, Jesus, the son of Mary, was one person and god and god. Now that's point number one, but there's a very important second one. And that is if you're in those pews in 1987, it's because you have a definite chain of contact and a contact that is causally effective.
It's putting you here this morning. It made you make very decisive decisions to get out of your warm bed and to come here because you have a definite contact, a chain uniting you in 1987 in April to Jesus Christ one AD or thereabouts. You've that has to be admitted. Why else are you here and calling yourself Christians? And, therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we have in our hearts, in our minds, in our souls, in all that we are, a conviction that Jesus Christ, son of Mary, is is and was god, and that he speaks with a living voice in 1987.
If either of these things is not true, then let's go out and play rummy or go to a football game or do something really worthwhile. Because if those things are not true, this is a sham. Absolutely a sham. And let's not be afraid to say it. Now, these readings picked for the during these days of Lent have been picked for certain reasons, not for bibliographical reasons, not for biographical reasons, not for bibliographical reasons.
They have been picked to try to confirm us in our faith that this man Jesus was god almighty, the son of god. Now as I've said many times, in a court of law, any court of law, the testimony of your enemies is pretty good testimony. Now have you asked yourself why did the Jews wanna kill Jesus? What was their legal claim? And they were very legal minded.
It wasn't they may have had all kinds of animosities animosities and jealousies and all the rest, but they had to have legal ground. Now what was the legal ground beyond all dispute? Here we have it in today's reading. Why did they what was their legal proposition? To oppose Jesus Christ with the utmost penalty of death.
Why? Because he made himself out to be god. Blasphemy. Blasphemy. That's it.
It's that simple. You may read the the synoptic gospels all you want. You may read the the epistles all you want. You may read father Raymond Brown all you want and all the rest of the learned theologians and the biblical scholars for whom I have more or less respect in various degrees from zero to a 100. But you cannot deny the evidence of his enemies.
And this doesn't rest upon one little text here or another little text there. What when he appeared before Pilate, what were the two accusations? First, that he claimed to be king. Well, that put him in the civil law. That put him in opposition to mighty Rome over there in the West.
That put him up in the position of being an anarchist. And if there's one thing the Romans would not tolerate, it was anarchy. You could do almost anything you wanted as long as you paid your taxes and kept quiet. That's how they managed to rule the world. The second so that took care of the civil power.
The second charge against Jesus was simply this, he made himself out to be god. You can't escape it. It's inescapable. And so we come to this conclusion. Either he was god or he was a fake or a lunatic or a cheat or anything you wanna call him.
But you cannot say he was a good man only and exclusively, because he certainly wasn't if he was not God, because he claimed to be God. His enemies understood it. His friends understood it, and it's the best testimony we have of saying, my lord and my god. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.