Since today is Passion Sunday, you may be anticipating a reading of the Passion today. Why is it that there is no reading of the Passion on Passion Sunday? Perhaps some liturgical fiddler in the past has removed it from our eyes? But no, that is not the case. The Passion narrative is read next Sunday, the Second Sunday in Passiontide, commonly known as Palm Sunday. Passiontide is, of course, a time when we focus on the Cross. And with the great liturgical flourish, this is the time when the Cross is veiled. We are focused upon that which we cannot fully see, such as the Paschal Mystery in our lives. We are devoted to something beyond our gaze, and we wish so much to pierce that veil.

We want to draw the curtain apart, to see everything more fully: but all in God’s time. The Gospel today is admittedly a very odd corner of Sacred Scripture, a very odd corner in our Lord’s life. To understand it fully, you need more context. In fact, you need to begin at the end of Chapter Six in the Gospel of John.  The drama that we see played out today is a small vignette of a much larger dialogue. That dialogue is a heated and complicated three-way argument between Our Lord, the Pharisees and “the Jews.” That designation is not indicating race: the word ‘Jew’ is a euphemism for the religious authorities.

Our Lord is preaching the Gospel of Salvation: as he reveals more and more, it starts to conflict with the way that this message had been previously received. He comes into conflict with the authorities and with the Pharisees.  To help you understand those relationships, here is an analogy.  The Pharisees could be thought of as a religious order. Imagine the Pharisees are the Dominicans, (if there are any Dominicans in the congregation, I’m not singling you out). But if you can imagine the Pharisees as a group that share a charism, a way of looking at the world, you would not be going so far wrong.

And “the Jews” represent the institutional religious organisms. So in our case, the corollary would be a  diocese or its Curia. So the religious orders and the Curia have an issue with this itinerant preacher who is claiming, not just to be of God, but, in fact, to be God. The concern is blasphemy, and this is the one thing which unites the Pharisees, and “the Jews”. They are concerned that the things of God are not transgressed by some false prophet, which is why there are constant questions. This whole argument comes to a head at the festival in Jerusalem.

Jesus has gone up to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths. This is one of three festivals during the year where everybody had to go to Jerusalem. It is a pilgrimage festival to mark the sojourn of the Israelites in the desert. To make memory of that time, families would gather and dwell in tents, in makeshift, outside dwellings to remember their ancestors’ wandering through the desert. They would live and pray in the tents, abandoning their homes and going to live in the yard.  Perhaps when you have passed a synagogue in the Fall, you will have seen these contraptions outside in the grounds of the synagogue.

Prior to arriving in Jerusalem, Jesus had told His family (His brothers, as John mentions) that He is not going to go up to the festival, which is a very odd thing indeed for a Jew to say. His family goes on ahead and then the Lord is found, or rather, discovered in Jerusalem. He has gone along without them, and He is found in the city.   Perhaps there is a sense of deja vu for His family: Where is He found? In the Temple, teaching. And everybody is marveling at His teaching.  The two protagonists, the Pharisees and “the Jews”, hear His teaching and are astonished that somebody from Galilee (who apparently has no formal education) could be speaking such wisdom.  The word spreads in Jerusalem. Is this a prophet? Is this the Messiah? Is this the Christ? Is this the One? You can imagine how the gossip was spread in such a community, particularly when you have people on pilgrimage.

After Our Lord is found teaching in the Temple,  the dialogue with the Pharisees and with “the Jews” is a two-pronged attack. He answers one set of criticisms and then another. It is a kind of a back and forth that occupies nearly three chapters of John’s Gospel. It is worth looking at it. To give you highlights, here are some of the accusations made:

Your testimony is a lie.

You are going to kill yourself.

You are a Samaritan (a very offensive thing to say).

You have a demon.

We have two of these accusations in the Gospel passage today. He’s accused of being a Samaritan – that is, unholy, ritually unclean and a dabbler in paganism.

He is also accused of having a demon, that is being literally in league with evil. The accusation about suicide is in response to Him saying: where “I am going, you cannot follow.” That was deemed to be a reference to taking His own life. Clearly the overarching accusation is: “You are a liar. Your testimony is not true.” And that is where we come into the conversation today. The Lord says: If My testimony is not true, then bear witness to the lack of truth.  The Lord’s response to these two groups is equally strong. He is not pulling His punches. Here are some of the ways the Lord responds to the Pharisees and to “the Jews”:

Your father is the devil.

You will die in your sin.

If I did not say that God was my Father, I would be like you, a liar.

This is an extremely tense and emotional argument that is going on in public over a period of weeks. It is not just one conversation. The Gospel for today allows us an insight as to why things happened as they did: Preparing us for the celebration of the Paschal mystery, this Gospel shows us the background. Why is it for example, that the Lord had to die on a Cross? Why is it that He be laid in a tomb and rise the third day? It is a very catechetical Gospel. And as such, we note the hallmarks of antiquity as we are entering into Passiontide.

It is the moment when the community, brought together on a Sunday, would have had the background explained to them in catechesis after the celebration of the Mysteries. That is why all of this background is being given. It is so that we might celebrate Easter well. We are given three very particular insights.

(i) If you keep my word, you will never see death.  That is to say I have the power over death. I have the power to relinquish death of any sting that it may have. Yes indeed, you will pass through the gloomy portals of death. We all will. But the Lord is about to show us that that is not the end. And as such, we have confidence to follow Him wherever He goes, up to and including the possibility of handing over our own life in imitation of Christ.  Keep my word and you will never see death. Hold fast to that promise in your hearts

(ii). Abraham and the prophets are dead. The implication is that the Lord has superiority over them. This is a very direct challenge. Death of course, is a consequence of not being one with God.  It is in some way a punishment for sin. Somebody who does not suffer death at all is elevated above those greats. This is the reason the question is asked, are you greater than Abraham, my father who has died and the prophets who are dead?

(iii) Before Abraham was, I am. Abraham rejoiced to see my day. So the direct question they ask, “Are you really saying that you are greater than Abraham and the prophets?”

The definitive answer we received in the Gospel today is,  “Yes, I am saying that.”   I AM WHO AM is the most divine thing that could be uttered in human language, because it is the revelation of God Himself. I AM WHO AM. Just a little brief note on that phrase. In Greek I am is ego eimi and in Greek the first person present of the verb ‘to be’ I am connotes not just location but also essence. So when in Greek the Lord says ego eimi, it is not just I am here, but I am what is. Whatever it is, I am ‘it’, being itself. And that, as philosophical content, is encapsulated in the Greek language, but it is not encapsulated in the Hebrew language.

I am what am in Hebrew does not connote being, it connotes location. The verb to be in Semitic languages is not about essence, but about being found; being discoverable. So the Lord revealing Himself as I AM WHO AM in the context of the Burning Bush, is that he can be found in a certain place. In Greek, and we are entitled to expand that notion because this Scripture has been given to us, in the Greek language.  We are entitled to add to that Semitic idea of being found, the idea of essence itself. God is not only found, but He is being itself. He is what it is to be. Nothing exists without Him, and everything exists because He exists.

Anybody who has power over life and death is somebody who is close to God.

But, raising the dead does not prove Christ’s divinity, because the prophets also raised the dead. Today is, in fact, a minor prophecy on the resurrection itself, because He claims not only to be able to raise the dead, but to have power over death in a way that Abraham and the prophets do not. Today we make sense as to why the Jews were so insistent that Pilate set a watch and a seal on the tomb. Why were they so obsessed with having a watch and a seal on the tomb? Because of His claim to have power over life and death. You can even see it in their objection to Pilate, “You must put the watch and the seal, otherwise His disciples will take Him away and claim that He has been raised from the dead.” So the watch and the seal are imposed as an evidential protection, He has a way of proving that He is not who He says: and we all know how that ends.

The prophecy is very clear in this passage from one line that you might otherwise gloss over: Jesus hid Himself and slipped out of the Temple precincts. Do you see how it all fits together? The conversation about life and death, which led to the obsession with the watch and the seal on the tomb prophesy here because the Lord is able to escape. This is in fact a miracle. He escapes in the middle of an interrogation. How could that possibly be? Can you imagine it? You are in the courtroom observing someone on trial and they suddenly disappear. They are nowhere to be found.

The Scripture ends just at the moment when the sentence is about to be carried out. They have picked up stones to throw at Our Lord, because He is a great sinner and a blasphemer. They pick up the stones, and He is gone. He has performed a miracle before their very eyes. As Charles Wesley’s beautiful hymn puts it: “vain, the stone, the watch, the seal,” because this is no mere man. This is God. And He will evade any trap that anyone seeks to put in His way.

Vain the stone, the watch, the seal!
Christ has burst the gates of hell!
Death in vain forbids His rise!
Christ has opened paradise!