NOT ONLY TRUTHFUL BUT TRUTH HIMSELF

Thursday in the 4th Week of Lent
Jn 5:31-47

Seldom do we get a series of Gospel readings from John. This week, we are having it consecutively. This will continue until Holy Week, with the exception only of Palm Sunday and Holy Wednesday. Why?

John the Evangelist wanted to prove, through what he called “signs”, that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus’ claim to divinity was what was driving His enemies crazy. They were too crazy as to deliver a fellow Jew, Jesus, to the Roman colonizers for crucifixion.

But Jesus could not lie simply to save His life. He did not know how to lie. He was perfectly truthful, including about who He really was. He, indeed, was the Son of God. And He still is.

Sometimes, the price of being truthful is very high. We have known men and women who paid with their lives the price of remaining on the side of truth. Those who killed them thought they could kill the truth by killing the truthful. But time and again, they have been proven wrong. No one can kill the truth. The truthful may be silenced by death but death shouts the truth even louder.

When His enemies put Him to death, they paved the way for God to shout the truth about His Son: He raised Him from the dead! The resurrection of Jesus echoes through generations until today that Jesus is truly the Son of God. Many have tried to make its message sound baffled, but they never succeed. The truth never dies, never fades, never changes. It lives on forever. No wonder Jesus is not only truthful. Jesus Himself is the Truth.