Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent -- April 15, 2011
John 10:31 – 42
Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came — and Scripture cannot be broken — what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.
Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. Here he stayed and many people came to him. They said, “Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.” And in that place many believed in Jesus.
Through Jesus, God lived in the world.
Jesus was not the only one, though, invited to live God’s life in the world. The ongoing invitation is extended to all of us, that we might embody God in our world. Within each of us, as within Jesus, there is a God-seed, which is the shape of God’s life that touches us and animates us at soul-level.
The religious leaders saw this essence in Jesus, but it did not bring them to a sense of their own souls. They didn’t trust that the God-seed could live in them or in anyone else.
They said to Jesus, “You are a mere human, and yet you are claiming to live God’s life.”
Jesus responded by quoting Scripture to these leaders.
Religious literalists, who generally love to quote Scripture, tend to hate it when someone else quotes Scripture back to them, especially when the Scripture quoted back to them refutes something within their position. Then things tend to get squirmy and unsettling.
Of course, the matter is hardly ever the Scripture itself, but rather which Scripture you decide to hear and which you choose to ignore.
Then beyond that, the matter is interpretation. That is, how do you interpret what you hear? Do you keep it at arms length, trying to massage it for information or understanding, or even as a prop for your own theological or philosophical life-system? Or do you listen to it with your heart and find a piece of your own soul-life within it?
Jesus quoted Psalm 82:6 to these religious people:
“I said, ‘You are gods’;
you are all sons of the Most High.”
So when they accused Jesus of claiming to be God, he didn’t directly answer their charge. Instead, he looked at them and said plainly:
In your Scripture it says, “I have said, ‘You are gods’.”
He didn’t deny their claim that he was God. In fact, he seemed to embrace it and then to enlarge it, as if to say, “Yes, and not only me, but you also have God’s life hidden within you.”
“You are gods.” The Scripture says it.
These people in John 10 aren’t the only ones to squirm with this kind of information. I find that contemporary religious folks regularly get uncomfortable when talk turns to the fullness of the God-life within us.
The early Church, though, had little problem with it. They saw this embodiment of God’s life incarnated not only in Christ but in the common believer as the fruit of Divine Union to which we are invited. They had a name for this holy movement of transformation, calling it “divinization,” referring to the process of sanctification by which the image of God is embodied within the human person.
If union with God is the goal of Christian spirituality – and it is, in fact, the goal of most all great spiritualities – then we need to be able to talk about it and acknowledge it. Yes, we are sinners. That fact is well-documented. But we were not created to spend a lifetime slumming around in our sin. The great Wesleyan phrase for divinization or sanctification is “moving on to perfection.”
It may be worth spending some time in meditation today to consider not only Jesus’ union with God, but also your own.
Jesus said in verse 38, “The Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Could I, too, say, “The Father is in me and I am in the Father”?
I hope so, because it’s true.
Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came — and Scripture cannot be broken — what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.
Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days. Here he stayed and many people came to him. They said, “Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.” And in that place many believed in Jesus.
Through Jesus, God lived in the world.
Jesus was not the only one, though, invited to live God’s life in the world. The ongoing invitation is extended to all of us, that we might embody God in our world. Within each of us, as within Jesus, there is a God-seed, which is the shape of God’s life that touches us and animates us at soul-level.
The religious leaders saw this essence in Jesus, but it did not bring them to a sense of their own souls. They didn’t trust that the God-seed could live in them or in anyone else.
They said to Jesus, “You are a mere human, and yet you are claiming to live God’s life.”
Jesus responded by quoting Scripture to these leaders.
Religious literalists, who generally love to quote Scripture, tend to hate it when someone else quotes Scripture back to them, especially when the Scripture quoted back to them refutes something within their position. Then things tend to get squirmy and unsettling.
Of course, the matter is hardly ever the Scripture itself, but rather which Scripture you decide to hear and which you choose to ignore.
Then beyond that, the matter is interpretation. That is, how do you interpret what you hear? Do you keep it at arms length, trying to massage it for information or understanding, or even as a prop for your own theological or philosophical life-system? Or do you listen to it with your heart and find a piece of your own soul-life within it?
Jesus quoted Psalm 82:6 to these religious people:
“I said, ‘You are gods’;
you are all sons of the Most High.”
So when they accused Jesus of claiming to be God, he didn’t directly answer their charge. Instead, he looked at them and said plainly:
In your Scripture it says, “I have said, ‘You are gods’.”
He didn’t deny their claim that he was God. In fact, he seemed to embrace it and then to enlarge it, as if to say, “Yes, and not only me, but you also have God’s life hidden within you.”
“You are gods.” The Scripture says it.
These people in John 10 aren’t the only ones to squirm with this kind of information. I find that contemporary religious folks regularly get uncomfortable when talk turns to the fullness of the God-life within us.
The early Church, though, had little problem with it. They saw this embodiment of God’s life incarnated not only in Christ but in the common believer as the fruit of Divine Union to which we are invited. They had a name for this holy movement of transformation, calling it “divinization,” referring to the process of sanctification by which the image of God is embodied within the human person.
If union with God is the goal of Christian spirituality – and it is, in fact, the goal of most all great spiritualities – then we need to be able to talk about it and acknowledge it. Yes, we are sinners. That fact is well-documented. But we were not created to spend a lifetime slumming around in our sin. The great Wesleyan phrase for divinization or sanctification is “moving on to perfection.”
It may be worth spending some time in meditation today to consider not only Jesus’ union with God, but also your own.
Jesus said in verse 38, “The Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Could I, too, say, “The Father is in me and I am in the Father”?
I hope so, because it’s true.
Beautiful! Today I pray for the grace to live this truth out in my life.
ReplyDeleteBlessings to you, friend....
for guidance as it is provided along the way.