ACCEPTED BUT NOT WELCOMED

Thursday in the 5th Week of Lent
Jn 8:51-59

Why could many of the Jews not accept Jesus? Here are three possible answers to reflect on.

First, the Father has not shown Himself to the Jews prior to the appearance of Jesus. His voice was heard and His presence felt by Moses through the burning bush, by the Israelites through a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night and through thunder and lightning in the desert. But no one has seen God. The Jews, in fact, believed that no one could see God and live.

Second, the Jews expected the usual kind of Divine Revelation as against the new and unique revelation made by Jesus who claimed to be the Son of God. Jesus was too ordinary for the Jews. Where were the smoke, the thunder, the lightning and the trembling of the earth when Jesus walked through the streets of Jerusalem and the shores of Galilee? There were none. Jesus looked just like any of them. The Jews even knew His ancestry. He was pretty ordinary to be the Absolute Other. Moreover, Jesus was very much provincial.

Third, Jesus proved the Jews wrong with their ideas about God. In doing so, Jesus came into open conflict with those who made their ideas about God their gods. He called them hypocrites and brood of vipers in public. Most of them were scribes and Pharisees, the religious leaders of His time. Many of them were elders in the community. Jesus was simply too much for those who refuse to acknowledge their own moral deficiencies.

Today, Jesus is more widely accepted. But that does not mean He is more welcomed into the hearts of many. There are still “scribes” and “Pharisees” around us and inside us. There are still elders in the community who refuse renewal and commit subtle idolatry by making their ideas about God their gods.

Stubbornness of heart captures the three reasons mentioned above and all other possible reasons why people cannot accept and welcome Jesus into their lives. When the heart is stubborn, it cannot be reborn.